Cold
by ishrinkingviolet
Summary: "I'll feel cold if you leave. My heart will be cold and summer will never bring me the same warmth as when you're around." Forbidden love has always been a dark, enticing tale to tell, but never easy to fight.
1. Cut off

**So some of you may have noticed that I've deleted this story- being the total noob I am, I've taken it out to edit a few things. **

**Originally, I had meant for "Cold" to be an angsty, emotion-provoking one-shot- and even with the "complete" beside it, some of you actually story-alerted... haha, you silly mooses. ;)**

**But because I've received many requests to continue this story, I'll turn this into a multi-chapter story- I'm thinking not as lengthy as 'Journal', but more than a one-shot. **

**Review if you want me to continue this 100%, otherwise I may just keep it as a one-shot!**

**And as always, enjoy!**

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There's a faint buzzing environing them both, a hazy fog reducing the carnival lights into blurry colours- blinking fuchsias, flashing blues, and foggy greens that he can't help but stare engrossingly at. His lips crush against hers with inexplicable ardency and urgency, prying her mouth open so that he can wrap his yearning tongue around her own. The hot air transferring between them both is like an unexplained, palpable representation of how much need in riding on their kiss. Eli should be able to hear their ragged breaths as they struggle to stay intertwined as much as possible, but the ringing in his ear prohibits him from hearing much of anything.

Her eyes are closed while they kiss. His are wide open.

They're open because he believes it'll be easier to remember the moment when he leaves. It makes it easier to register the feel of her hands gripping his hair, the way their torsos are pressed together in an insatiable thirst to be as close as physically possible. Then he'll remember how his fists are clenched around the bottom hem of her shirt, after having ripped open her jacket to find the innermost layer she is wearing. He doesn't plan on going any further than that, because he just wants his knuckles to be touching the soft skin on her waist. He's clutching onto her thin cotton shirt with insuperable strength, but he feels weak. It's the strength he has in his hands when he first wakes up in the morning, when he feels as if his blood had ceased to circulate. Like he can clench as hard as he can, but he's restrained by some unexplainable force. Still Eli grips, just as Clare grips.

"I'm cold," she whispers, breaking off and leaving a razor-thin distance between their lips. The frosty winter air is swirling around them ruthlessly, and Clare's teeth are chattering. Her lips look blue, icy against her pallid skin. "I'm so cold, Eli."

As her eyelashes flutter in the wind, he unclenches one hand and shakily slides his fingers between hers. He lifts up their joined hands beside them.

"You won't be cold much longer. They're going to find you any minute now, Clare, and you're going to be home soon."

"No," she says resolutely, searching his dark, unfathomable eyes. "I'm not going without you."

"This isn't where you belong," he breathes, much more callously than he intended. But though he speaks in such a harsh manner, he keeps his forehead pressed against the wide expanses of the girl before him. The girl who is trembling from his touch, frozen to the core from all the time they spent running. How many miles they travelled together, escaping their impending demise. Running together aimlessly in the dead of a very cold winter night , boots trudging through the thick inches of snow and hands clasped together as a reminder of why they were running. "They found us, Clare. It's over."

"No," she says again, shaking her head without tearing away her impenetrable gaze.

And he roughly smashed his lips against hers again, drinking in what little time they had left together. Permanently etching onto his brain what may be the last of happiness, for it to never be forgotten.

"It's not over," she tries to say, but it comes out as a week croak. A desperate plead for the survival of their love, an unwavering hope that what they've worked so hard to keep.

"Clare," he whispers bleakly. "You belong to Jake. We were never meant to twist fate."

Something flashes across her crystal blue eyes- anger? Betrayal? She chokes back a sob, roughly shoving at his chest. She pushes him hard, not once, not twice, but many times to get her message across. "I _hate _you!" she shrieks weakly, voice breaking at the last word. She advances, pushing him harder and harder. "Why are you giving up so easily? Why won't you _fight _for us?"

Eli just stands there, staggering back when his balance fails to keep him grounded. He doesn't say anything, just lets her shoves at him until she calms down. He knows her. He knows that her anger flickers out quicker than the flame of a candle, and that he can do absolutely nothing but wait until the storm is over.

"I don't love Jake!" she shakes her head furiously, curls whipping back and forth. They tangle from the movement, and her face flusters from sudden infuriation. "He doesn't even love me! He's a selfish gold-digger who only wants to inherit my family's fortune and I don't want anything to do with him!"

He sees her distress. He sees how much she wants to stay with him. But he also sees that a life with him guarantees perpetual trouble and struggles. Eli doesn't want that for Clare, because she's beautiful and golden and full of promise, and he's just Eli. He's frayed around the edges, whilst she radiates luminosity. At seventeen he already knows that his life has nothing else to offer him. The black abyss had always been waiting for him; the girl just delayed the inevitable.

"I know," he says ruefully, reaching out to cup her face. His hands are quivering, trying so hard to fight what's building inside of him. The anger, the sadness, the angst will ultimately reach the boiling point, as he's nothing more than a volatile being. A sharp contrast to her never-ending patience. "But you can't run anymore, can you?"

She sniffs, and she knows it's true. Her feet are swollen and aching, protesting with every step she takes. "I'll feel cold if you leave. My heart will be cold and summer will never bring me the same warmth as when you're around."

Just as he opens his mouth to speak, the loud sound of tires screeching against the pavement snaps them out of their trance, and the two turn around in synchronization. Police cars coming to abrupt halts, surrounding them so they couldn't escape. Clare gasps and cowers to Eli's side, and he immediately wraps his arm around her body.

"Police! Put your hands up!"

It was at that moment that the pain became excruciatingly unbearable. Not because his arms were roughly wound at his back by force, wrists linked together by the means of sliver handcuffs, but because he was ripped around from someone he loved more than anything else. Just like that, the closest person in his life torn away from him, dragged inside the backseat of a sleek black Volvo. In the driver's seat was undoubtedly the smug young man who had intimated all of this, and he was smirking like he had just won the lottery.

But he hadn't, because this was a much better win than what the lottery could possibly provide.

"Eli!" Clare screams, desperately trying to keep from being jammed in the car. Jake's security men all but shoved her in, mercilessly disregarding the tears trickling down her face as it contorted in absolute pain.

"Clare!" he yells back, trying with all his might to loosen himself from the cop's vice-tight grip. He shakes and wrenches in a futile attempt to break free, to take the girl's hand and run far away. But it isn't long before he just settles for craning his neck, just to see her face for as long as he possibly could before she leaves forever.

The car door slams shut with an air of finality, and she immediately scoots over to the windows to roll them down. The engine starts quickly, putting them both in a panic to squeeze in their last words.

"I love you!" she gasps loudly, sticking her beautiful head out. "I love you, I love you, please don't forget that!"

"Clare! I love-"

But the car careens away before he could get all the words in, leaving behind nothing but a puff of grey smoke, and the broken pieces of his lover's heart.

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**P.S: to the lovely review(s) who said they cried whilst reading this, you totally made my day. :)**


	2. Numb

_**TheCliffhangerGirl : **_**after Googling what AU means, I can confidently confirm that this story is!**

**Tell me about your feels in regards to this story via reviews!**

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"I don't understand why you're so upset," Jake says, flicking open his lighter with one hand. As he stands, leaning against the closed bedroom door in a casual stance, he gazes curiously at the passive small girl staring glassily at the floor. Bringing the cigar to his lips and taking a long drag, he exhales a small puff smoke. "You're only sixteen- running away with a guy you hardly know seems a bit reckless, don't you think?"

Her hands remains folded, unmoving in her lap. Her shoulders aren't heaving up and down as she was sobbing in the car, and her face looks completely dry from tears. Clare doesn't answer. Doesn't even acknowledge his presence. All she does is stare at the wooden ground.

"Your mom is downstairs. She wants to talk to you," he continues, twirling the chalky cigarette with his lanky fingers. "Are you coming?"

Still no answer. Not even the slightest shift to let him know that she was alive.

"Okay, well I'll see you later," he half-waves, smiling lopsidedly before twisting open the door know behind him. He quietly shuts it behind him, leaving Clare some time to collect her thoughts.

As soon as the sound of his footsteps could no longer be heard by the strained ears, all the walls comes tumbling down, crumbling around her curled toes and sore heels. She begins to violently gasp and pant, vertigo quickly slipping out from beneath her feet. Stumbling forward and colliding against her drawers, she frantically rips the second compartment open, desperately searching for something- a reminder, anything.

Books and paper flies over my shoulder, landing haphazardly in a mess on her floors. Her breathing hastens, and Clare is at a full state of panic.

"Where is it?" she pleads in a barely audible murmur, proceeding to yank out the bottom drawer. A small photo comes flying out, and in an instinct she knows it's the one. Even drifting freely in the air, she recognizes it. The doggy-eared corner and dents from all the nights she held it before going to sleep, smiling a soft smile on her tired face. When nightmare strikes her hard in the middle of the night, she would flicker her lamp open and dive for the reassurance the picture provides- the warmth, the sense of security would immediately flood her body, and the fright would die just like that.

There are only two photos in existence of them, one of which lies in her possession. The other in his. And when Clare sees it, the effect remains as potent as it had been the first time around. Something about his dark, tender gaze enables her gaze fondly at him for hours on a run. In the photograph, their index and middle fingers and hooked onto each others, and Clare is holding their arms high up in the air. She's smiling brightly at their entwined fingers, craning her neck while keeping her body in a delicate little ballerina position on the sidewalk. Eli, on the other hand, is gazing directly at her face. His gentle smile is ever-present and loving, a sharp contrasts to his rough leather jacket jet-black hair. His free hand is gingerly lifting her dress as it flutters in the breeze, and try as she might, to this day she hadn't quite figured out what he had meant to do there. Asking him the day the photo developed, he just smiled sweetly and cocked his head to the side. _You look pretty today,_ he had said, cutely scrunching up his face.

Something tiny splatters onto the picture, something wet. Glancing up at the roof over her head, Clare wrinkles her brows together in confusion. It couldn't be raining indoors…

Swiping her eyes with her fingers, she realizes it was her. _Oh. _

"Clare," a voice says, a knock following closely after. "You mom wants you down."

Scrubbing her face raw until the tears are wiped clean, Clare grips the drawer for support as she tries to stand up. Her legs are wobbling underneath her, but she presses forward. There's no use in delaying the inevitable.

Endeavouring to descend the stairs without having her knees buckle was a task that required a considerable amount of concentration. The way she staggers is not of a drunken person, though- it's the inability to process something she can't comprehend that's sapping her energy, her strength. Had he really been ripped away from her? It feels so surreal.

"Clare. Diane. Edwards," Helen says in a low, deadly voice. If looks could kill, Clare would certainly be ten feet underground, and that's excluding her frightening body language. The way her arms are folded over her chest would normally scare her to the state of crying, the way her hands are clenched underneath her armpits. She's practically quivering with fury, teeth gritted with utmost anger and eyes narrowed into tiny, livid slits.

Clare bows her head, but not from shame of fear this time. She's too emotionally drained to even _think _about what trouble she's in with her mother.

"You ungrateful troll!" she screeches, hands striking her cheek with a sharp, slapping sound. "How _dare _you disobey me? How _dare _you try to run away with that boy?"

Her cheek is stinging, and she gingerly touches it out of instinct. The pain is numb and dull, just like the rest of her body. In spite of her mother's red-hot infuriation, her body is slowly shutting down. She doesn't even try to manoeuvre herself out of another fit of physical and mental abuse, or throw herself at her mercy.

It's because it has happen so many times before, she knows the worst that can happen. And whatever she can do to her, will never compare to what she has already done.

"You," a booming voice shakes the entire household, followed by the slam of the front door. Randall comes storming in, face red with extreme fury, and throws his briefcase to the side as if it's nothing. In one, swift, motion, he grabs Clare's arm with such strength, she's lifted off the ground. "Do you have _any _idea what you have just done? _Do you_?"

Feet dangling off the floor and nails digging into her flesh, it's all the same numb feeling. She doesn't even react. She doesn't cry. Not this time.

"You bitch, look at me when I talk to you!" he roars, shaking her violently.

"_You_ do not run away. You are not to see that boy, speak of that boy, or even _think _of that boy again, do you understand me?" Helen hisses. "You will be Jake's wife. You will obey us as long as you are our daughter, and you will not do anything otherwise. _Do you understand me_?"

Silence and tension only occupies the air now, and the possibility of another angry breakout lies on Clare's shoulders now. Lifting her head up slightly meet her parents' red-rimmed eyes, she swallows.

"Yes," she whispers.

"Good," Helen says, and Randall releases his vice-tight grip on her.

Jake clears his throat a bit in the background, subtly making his presence known. Three pairs of eyes flash towards him in an instant, and he just pressed his lips together in a tight line.

"I should probably go home now," he murmurs, eyeing the limp girl speculatively.

"Alright," Randall mutters, straightening his tie. "Clare, go say good-bye to him now."

With a pleased smirk on his face, he watches Clare move robotically towards him. Stretching up on her toes, she places a small kiss on his cheek. "Good-night, Jake," she says quietly, stepping back immediately.

"Night, Clare," he says, and then makes his way to the door. "Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards."

"Drive safe now, Jake," Helen nods.

Here comes the silent tension again, and though the clock ticks and Clare wishes she could be anywhere else her feet stay planted on the ground.

Here comes the feelings that come subsequently after a livid confrontation, and though her father wordlessly makes his way to his office and her mother is fixing another strict dinner for Clare her feet stay rooted to the ground.

Here comes to deep yearning to be uplifted from the mess she's tangled in, and though she's standing alone in the room her feet stay standing on the ground. Because this time, it's really over. Months of hiding and sneaking out, months of living like she had something worth living for become something of the past.

She was always meant to marry Jake. She was always meant to follow her parents' orders. That's how it was already meant to be.

"You will eat peas, beef, and brown rice today," her mother calls from the kitchen, evidently already over the last heated lecture. Another bland meal with set portions she is preparing, none of which Clare has any say in.

"May I go take a shower?" Hoping to remedy some of the numbness with hot water, Clare clears her throat, as she sounds raspy and nearly mute. She repeats herself, and is and answered with a long silent at first.

"You may shower for ten minutes," Helen allows, the sound of chopping filling the empty.

But even hot water can't cure the acne in her heart.


	3. Save the princess

**I assumed most have you have seen the new promo today, hmm? I'll admit I'm a little on the fence with the whole Drew/Katie/Bianca thing. I've never been an avid shipper of each couples, but I have to say that there is fault in both Drew and Katie's part. First of all, Katie had been there for Drew through all the hardships he had to encounter in Now or Never, and it is in my opinion rather harsh of him to break up with her just like that when she needed him most. Secondly, he _was _her first- at this point., we don't know when this had happened, but if it had been after the whole Bianca thing, then that boy needs a good whooping. That would be a very selfish thing for him to do.**

**But Katie damaging Bianca's car? That's inarguably below the belt. None of this is Bianca's fault, and it's unfair of Katie to judge based on the type of person she had once been. That's all in the past.**

**And as for Eclare, the lack of clips showing their interaction may be a good thing. Less drama, I hope.**

**I promise you that the chapters _will _get longer after this one, and as always, enjoy!**

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Eli sits, leaning his head against the back of the wall and tossing a hatchet up in the air repeatedly. He snags it easily before it touches the floor, and then proceeds to lifelessly flick it upwards again. Wash, rinse, and repeat. And every time he captures the small device in the crevice between his index and middle finger, the time span between the toss and the catching, it mimics the time it takes for his heart to beat against his chest. The pumps of blood are long and drawled out, more like a dull clawing at his chest than anything else. Even when the hatchet cuts his palm as it descends, his blood doesn't look remotely similar to the vivid scarlet that pools underneath her cheeks. It looks like a faded grey in his eyes, oozing out and dripping onto the carpet.

And he sits like that for hours, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. His hand is getting bloody and his fingers are starting to look mangled with pain he can't feel, but he continues to sit. His eyelids are heavy and sluggish with fatigue, eyes rimmed with red and accompanied with deep purple rings underneath. He feels his body disconnecting from his brain, gradually, nerve by nerve. More and more he starts to feel like a living corpse, and he feels himself dying.

Eli Goldsworthy is dying.

There are a lot of things he regrets- hell, there is an endless list of sins he committed within in the past few years, things he would try to atone for if it was somehow possible to go back in time. Remorse is what it feels half the time.

He regrets what he said the first time they fought.

"_You can't keep pushing me away, Eli, I know you." Clare yells from a few feet away. She eventually stops and cements her feet on the hard of the sidewalk. There's an unmistakable inflection of pain dripping through her every word, lagging behind the heavy frustration seeping through her voice. The way she is speaking to him, it makes him want to turn on his heel and yell back. It makes him want to disgorge every bit of love she had given him and stomp on it with his feet, right where she can clearly see._

_But instead he continues to stride away, hands jammed in his pockets and feet moving mechanically forward._

"_Why do you keep running away? Huh? You tell me you love me one minute and completely throw me away the next and I can't keep up with you!" And even though his back is turned and the distance between them is stretching, he can feel her eyes burning a hole in the back of his head. She sounds scratchy and exasperated and it just spikes up his anger even more. "Oh I get it," she says bitterly, almost spitting out the words. "Let's mess with Clare's heart, why don't we? Rip it from her chest, feed it false affection, and then leave it on the streets to die. It's just a fun game to you, isn't it? You're messed, Eli."_

_At this point, he's letting out a cynical bark of laughter. "You're delusional," he snorts, shaking his head._

"'_Delusional'?" Clare repeats with a scoff of disbelief. "Well forgive me for not being able to read that warped mind of yours! You…you change like the weather. You're so erratic, I can't stomach it."_

_She hurries and reaches out, seizing his wrist and pulling him to a complete stop. She turns him so that he has no choice but to face her, and stares at him with a piercing look in her eyes._

"_Tell me what I'm supposed to think," she demands, almost daring him to say what she doesn't want to hear. "Tell me the truth!"_

"_I'm afraid you won't be able to stomach it," he mocks, yanking his arm away. Disregarding the rush of coldness that entered his veins when they were no longer touching._

"_Try me," she says steadily, flames ablaze in her pupils._

_It's his turn to narrow his eyes into angry little slits, and when he does it, he's taken aback by how unafraid she is of him. Even as he's glaring down at her, she stays rooted without a single flicker of hesitation of fear, eyes never tearing away from his._

"_I never loved you, I don't care for you, and you are completely delusional in thinking that we would ever have a future together," he says shortly, warily, watching her unmoving expression. "This just proves how little you know about me. I needed a distraction, and you were just too easy. We were never really together."_

"_Wow," she says at once, still glaring at him. A long silence full of tension environs them now, neither willing to back down so easily. "You're quite an impressive manipulator. My mistake for believing that actually had a heart under that bullshit front you keep up."_

Eli still winces at the image of Clare, tough as steel and firm and metal, standing her ground and saying what she said after the horrible things he threw at her. It was at that point that he realized that the impossibly strong girl before him _did _in fact know him, better than anyone else. How accurately she had called him out on it, how capable she was of holding it together when he was shattering into a million pieces inside. It scares him so much- the fact that she reads him like a book, the fact that she had proven herself to be incredibly tough in spite of the incredible fragility Eli knows of her, but most importantly the fact that he had driven her to that state. He knew she was hurting, but he didn't stop. He was a completely monster for acting the way he did, and felt even more like one when it was later revealed that he had broken her in more ways than one. That was something he would never forgive himself for.

Another thing he regrets is not spending every waking moment with her when they were together- when they _could_ be together.

"_There's a carnival today near that bookstore we always go to," Clare says with a glimmer of hope weaving through her voice. "Would you like to go?"_

_Eli clamps the phone between his ear and shoulder, merging his eyebrows together as he glances over at the clock. He makes a mental calculation of how much time he has to finish his paper for English and frowns when he realizes, _not very much.

"_I don't think so, Clare. I have a paper due tomorrow and…"_

"_Oh." The disappointment in her voice is not well-hidden, but she speaks again before he has the chance to say something. "No worries, we can do something else another time. Do you need some help with your paper?"_

"_It's about gun powder," he says with a faint smirk. "You might want to reconsider that offer."_

"_Well, alright then. I'll see you Monday then."_

"_Guess you will."_

He winces again at his insensitivity, how inconsiderate he had been. The homework was no excuse; he had all week to work on it, he had merely procrastinated and inevitably disappointed more than just himself. Eli doesn't dwell too much on this, mostly because it was something that could have been corrected by prudence and a bit of responsibility. Not one of his finest moments, definitely.

But his biggest regret shadows all his mistakes from the past.

He regrets not saying _I love you _to Clare before they were torn apart.

Before he was left in the dust.

"What the actual _fuck, _man!"

The lights flicker on, and for a second he stings his eyes. That's good. He's feeling something.

"Are you trying to kill yourself or- where's Clare?" Adam narrows his eyes at him. In his half-awake state, his hair is dishevelled and his sweatpants are pooling around his ankles. As he squints, shielding his eyes from the bright fluorescents, Eli momentarily stops tossing the hatchet to stare blankly at the wall behind Adam. Scary thing is, even after having been disrupted from peaceful sleep at three am, he looks a lot healthier and well than Eli by a landslide. It doesn't even occur to the boy that the sound of his catching is loud enough to be heard from behind the thin wall, and that when it is done constantly, it is enough to irk the hell out of anyone that close.

"We broke up," he says bitterly, face twisting into a grimace.

"That doesn't make any sense," Adam mashes his brows together skeptically. He folds his arms across his chest, frowning expectantly at him. "You love her, and she loves you." He says it like the most obvious thing in the world, as if they were blowing a small quarrel way out of proportion.

"Yeah well, sometimes love isn't enough," he says curtly, whipping the hatchet across the floor with an angry contraction of his muscle. It collides against the leg of a chair with a loud thud, provoking a flinch in Adam's part. "She's tied to someone else."

"Jake? Her parents are forcing her to be with _Jake_?" he scoffs in disbelief.

"He won. It's over," he spits out, clenching his bloody hand into a fist.

"Like hell it is," Adam cusses. He never curses. He only reserves profanities on special occasions.

Like every week, maybe.

"We tried, and it didn't work," Eli says obstinately, as if refusing to think otherwise. He slowly rises to his feet, glancing from his hand, to Adam. The look in his eyes is so dark, so haunting, and so bleak; it causes Adam to stagger backwards, as he is unable to comprehend all of this.

"You can't give up on her, Eli," he tries to persuade him, eyes diverting to the blood dripping on the carpet. "You two have been to hell and back, there's no way this can just- s-she's your lobster for Harold's sake!"

"Who the fuck is Harold?" Eli glares confusedly at him.

"I- you get the point," Adam glowers, cheeks a faint red. "How long have you guys been at it? Half a year or something like that?"

"Almost six months now," Eli says with a shape inhale.

"Exactly! You just can't throw time and development like that away. I've seen you two in action- you have huge blow-outs here and there, and it's hard. It's hard on both of you, but somehow, someway you find a way to patch things up. You conquer all the shit life throws at you and you strengthen your relationship in that way."

"So?" Eli says, arching his brow.

"_So_, what makes this time any different than the others?"

"This time, we can't fix it. I mean, we _physically_ can't," Eli says, dropping onto his bed. Even in an upright position, the exhaustion releasing itself from his body is just incredible. His feet feel more like cement blocks than flesh and bones, his legs like heavy metal poles than what they are. "The cops followed us today and everything. He took her away in his car and-"

He swallows the lump down his painfully dry throat, and it feels more like swallowing a steel knife than anything else.

"And I didn't even get to tell her good-bye," he says hoarsely, all in one quick breath. He averts his gaze immediately, afraid that if he meets his best friend's sympathetic eyes, it'd be harder to keep himself together.

"You don't have to," Adam urges in gentler tone. "Because it's not the end. It's nowhere near the end. Just trust me, man, you have to keep trying. Listen, I can go call Fi if you want- she's usually better at sorting these things out."

"It's late," Eli shakes his head resolutely. "Just go to sleep Adam, I'll...I'll be fine. Thanks for coming out here."

Seeing that he's nowhere near budging, Adam sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I can see that you're lying, but you're exhausted."

"I'll sleep on it," Eli waves his hand dismissively.

And what exactly does he have left to sleep on, when blissfulness is so far away? What will help him drift off into the peaceful land of slumber with no happy thoughts to gently rock him to sleep? The sense of sorrow is sapping away all his energy, his will to think, and all he feels like doing in wallowing in his own-self-pity, grieving over the lost of something rare and never to reoccur.

But even drowning in the pieces his shattered heart, Eli knows he has a duty. It is, and always will be his job to protect the princess, and that duty is his first priority.

And right now, it's calling him to save her from the tall tower.


	4. Rude Awakening

**I upload fanfiction chapters at 11pm in the night this is normal**

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"Randall, what are we going to do with that girl?" Helen whispers lowly, peering at the sleeping girl with a disapproving wrinkle of her eyebrows. The way she puckers her lips gives off the impression that she had eaten something disgustingly sour, when in reality, this is how she looks all the time.

"Her pillow is damp," Randall squints, gripping the door knob as support as he leans forward. "She must have been crying all night."

"She had been oddly unresponsive the night before," Helen scowls in dissatisfaction, shaking her head. She folds her lanky arms across her chest. "The miserable, disgrace of a child. Doesn't even know what the appropriate reaction is when a parent is merely trying to guard her in the right way."

"We've given her too many chances," Randall adds solemnly, keeping his voice just over a whisper. "We've become too lenient with our parenting, Helen. We let her spend too much time with that wretched boy- he's become a bad influence on her."

"She was better as a young child, following orders and doing exactly what she was told to do," she says. "I always say, too much freedom turns a child wayward."

"Perhaps now is the time…"

"We will speak with her when she wakes up," she says decidedly. They nod, silently agreeing to allow their daughter to sleep in for a little while longer on the fine Saturday morn.

Clare's eyes flicker open, having never been asleep during her parents' discussion. She's been waken up at seven am every morning for as long as she could remember, and her body wakes up mechanically at that time. And having been jarred awake by the gravity of their conversation, she is more alert than ever before.

_What are they planning to talk to me about, _she wonders anxiously, remaining perfectly still on her mattress. Her intuition warns her that it's something bad. Really bad. Not only because her mother had sounded so resolute of their plan, but because there had been a slight air of sympathy drifting around the two whilst discussing. They are never sympathetic. They never allow her to sleep in.

She rolls to her side, glancing at the mirror hanging directly across on the wall. Her complexion is ghastly, and the bags under her eyes look beyond repair. From her appearance alone, she can remember what sleep had temporarily allowed her the forgotten, and she lets out painful exhale. It's as fresh as it had been the night before, only now, it's sinking in a whole lot better. Someone trample on her heart and shove her into a pool of burning acid- at least it'd distract her from the pain of being ripped away from someone she loved.

A knock on her window.

_It must be the rain_, she convinces herself, too drained to think much more about it.

Another knock, followed by a louder one.

"It's the dead of winter," she mutters confusedly to herself. "Why would it be raining?"

And like a jolt of lightning, she flips her covers off and jumps to her feet, her heart suddenly accelerating. Hopes washes over her as she rushed over to her windows, and Clare prays desperately that the improbable would happen and Eli would be outside her window, rescuing her from the steel grasp that are her parents. That he would be standing on her front lawn, holding a bag filled with necessities and a rock in the other. "_Come on_," he would say, an inviting grin on his face. "_Let's blow._"

Clare rips open her curtain excitedly, glancing downwards to see, indeed, a boy holding a handful of pebbles.

Except it isn't the boy she hoped it would be.

"Clare!" Adam calls as she slides open her window pane. Trying to ignore the sharp stab to her chest, the feeling of immense disappointment surging through her entire lifeless body, she musters a hello in return, slumping her shoulders slightly. She loves Adam, she really does, and would be delighted to see him in any other situation. Just not today, not when she is deprived of Eli's presence.

"What are you doing here, Adam?" she asks dully, just loud enough so that the boy would be able to hear.

He holds up a folded piece of paper in hand, pointing at it with his other to emphasize. While under her scrutiny, he wraps it around a pebble with an elastic band, going over it a few times to secure.

"Stand back," he warns, raising it over his head as a universal sign that he's going to throw the object.

"Wait, you're going to break the-"

"Clare, your mom could catch me at any minute!" Adam cuts her off urgently, gesturing her with a hasty flick of his wrist to move back. "Move back!"

Given no other choice, she immediately obeys, dashing onto her bed and diving under the covers. She cups her ears and squeezes her eyes shut, anticipating the sound of shattering windows to disrupt the silence of the morning. Instead, however, the sound of something dense landing on her carpet causes her to flinch. It skids across the floor before coming to a complete halt.

Gingerly lifting up her blanket, she takes a peek, and spots the note and rock sitting lone next to the leg of her chair.

"Adam, what is this?" she calls, frowning when she realizes that no one is there standing anymore.

It's just her and the note now.

Hesitantly, she moves over to where the object lay still, bending over slowly to pick it up. It feels cool against her warm fingers, and she rolls over around her palm a few times before scraping together the courage to open the note. She doesn't know why, but she's a little afraid to open it. Her fingers are quivering as she unfolds it, stretching out the wrinkled paper.

_Clare,_

_I had Adam send this to you because I couldn't risk getting you in more trouble- I can just imagine what you had waiting for you at home, and I didn't want to exacerbate the circumstances any further. I'm sorry I'm not there with you, I'm sorry. I love you, and I'll come get you soon. I know you're hurting, and I am too- more than you could ever imagine. I love you and I'm sorry, and I'm asking you to be strong for the both of us now, okay? We'll figure something out, I promise._

_Eli._

Attached to it by the means of tape, is the second picture in existence of them both: they sit, backs gently leaning on each other and hands woven together on the side. The gritty sand under them buries their feet. Clare's eyes are closed in utter bliss, and she appears perfectly content with the serenity of the situation; Eli on the other hand, always seems to thrive in more cognizance. His head is slightly tilted to the side, just enough to see a bit of her. Because his head is downturned, she can't read past the thick lashes resting on the delicate skin under his eyes. She sees for a sure a hint of a coy smile playing on his lips, though, and it sends her heart in a frenzy. The sky and lake provides a gorgeous scenery, deep blues and golden oranges and yellows melding together harmoniously, but she notices this only from the corner of her eye. The picture had been out of her reach for a so long, it's more or less new to her.

She smiles softly to herself, and though it's bleak, it's a smile nevertheless.

"Oh Clare, you're up," Helen suddenly comes walking in. In her haste to hide the note, she shoves it underneath her bed, covering up with a nose-to-nose inspection of the carpet.

"I-I um, seemed to have lost a bobby pin somewhere," she lies badly, fumbling around for effect.

"Please get off the floor, Clare, you look ridiculous," her mom demands, folding her arms over her chest. "Your father and I would like to talk to you."

She gulps, standing up at her command. Like a robot, she follows her mother out and down the stairs. Like a robot, her feet are moving mechanically so that her pace is just quick enough to keep up with her. It's surprising that she's able to move at all, given the extreme anxiousness swirling around in my stomach so early in the morning.

With her mother's presence, the warmth Eli's note provided her with evaporated in an instant.

"What's going on?" she inquires fearfully, gripping the fabric of her nightgown tightly. Her face is suddenly white upon seeing her father and Jake sit peacefully at the dining room table. Equally calm and certain of themselves, a warm mug of coffee placed within their reach. "What's Jake doing here so early?"

"We've been talking to Jake all morning, and we've all reached a decision that we believe is best for you," Randall says sternly. There were a lot of _we 's _in that sentence, but Clare doesn't recall being a part of any of them.

"What's going on?" she asks warily, not liking the inflection in her father's voice, nor the eerily tranquil atmosphere drifting around them.

"We're moving to Ottawa," Jake informs casually, downing his cup of espresso. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"I'm sorry?"

"Jake's father found a job there, and he would be moving regardless," Helen elaborates. "Perfect timing, really- your father and I have been discussing moving away for a while now."

"But…why? My school's here, and so is- so are my friends," Clare gapes, skin turning more translucent by the moment.

"You look green, Clare," Jake states, scrutinizing her face.

"We decided as a family that it'd be most prudent if we start fresh-"

"I don't remember being part of this discussion," Clare says, appalled. "Aren't I just as part of the family as either of you?"

"Don't interrupt me, Clare," Helen says austerely. "The move is the best for us all. Clearly, this place serves as too much if a distraction for you. It'd be good for you to meet some new people, find your grounding again."

"It's because of Eli, isn't it?" she says, legs buckling underneath her. They feel as flimsy and thin as paper, weaker than all the strength she could muster on her pinky finger. Nausea is rolling all around. And when no one immediately jumps to prove her accusation wrong, she gasps. "Oh my God. We're moving because you don't want me anywhere near Eli."

"Clare, don't be such a child about this," Randall glares, folding up his newspaper. "Look at Jake over here- he's got lots of friends, and you don't hear him complaining."

"That's because Jake's not in love," Clare shoots back, though she's afraid of the consequences of talking back.

You have to give the terrified girl some credit for being deathly afraid of her parents, and having the courage to provoke them with what strikes their nerves the hardest.

"Be quiet and don't pretend like you know what love is," Helen orders, voice lowering dangerously. Her eyes flash with red, a sure signal that her patience is at its end. "We're moving, and that's final."

"_Pretending?_" Clare scoffs, but not in the condescending, sardonic way. She's in disbelief, taken aback by the utter rubbish coming out of her mother's mouth. Three pairs of eyes flash to her at once, each warning with different levels of lethalness- Helen's as deadly as ever, Randall's coming a close second, and Jake's as more of a _I don't think that's such a good idea _look. But between her boiling blood, escalating infuriation, and overall _offensiveness _of her mother's assumption, she doesn't register the severity of the situation. She hadn't imagined it would happen this fast, in this way, but she knew that a blow-up was inevitable. She hadn't given up Eli, not now, not yet. "You're telling me that I don't know love. You don't look at your husband the same way I look at Eli. You wouldn't risk a fraction of what Eli risked for me."

"Clare," Helen hisses astringently. Her hand raises, and Clare knows she's about to strike. She knows, but she has so much to get off her chest, she takes the chance.

"Why are you so hell-bent on keeping Eli away from me? Why do you hate him so much?"

"Jake is better choice for you!" her mother says shrilly, lifting her hand up. Her red face twists into a threatening look of utmost lividness, just daring her to say more. "One more time Clare, and…"

"Or what?" Clare challenges bravely, seeing the trembling hand above her. She narrows her eyes, advancing towards Helen without the slightest falter in her step. "You'll hit me, like you always do? Even when I haven't done anything wrong? You think in some way, I'll transform back into the scared little girl who obeyed your every ridiculous command?"

Her hand is shaking violently now, but it remains suspended in the air. Something flashes across Helen's eyes- realization perhaps. But the fury is still there, still seething underneath her skin, still directed towards her daughter.

"Clare," Jake says quietly in the background. He's ignored.

"I am sick and _tired _of being pushed around like a ragdoll, and frankly, I'm not afraid of you anymore," she says vociferously, only half-certain of this. She's still afraid, but more of the situation then her mom- how had she let it go this far? Why hadn't she stood up for herself earlier? "You don't get to tell me who of if I love!"

A loud, deafening slap fills the room, and Clare finds herself staggering backwards with a piercing pain on her cheek. It's not only stinging- it's pounding hard. The right side of her face feels almost deformed from the impact, as raw as raw could be.

And you'd think that by now a mother's heart would thaw and produce some sort of guilt and realization, but no. Not for Helen, no.

Clare touches her cheek, slowly lifting her head to meet her mom's fiery glare of venom and anger.

"I don't need this," she spits out, turning on her heel and storming towards the front door. Though her mind is complete mess and her surrounding is blurring into a fog, she finds it in her to grab her mom's prized vase by the neck and smash it on the floor. Thousands of fragments scatter across the room, separating her and the rest of supposed family.

And then she runs out the door, sprinting harder than she ever had in her life.

-x—

"Did you get it to her?" Eli presses urgently, practically cornering poor Adam into a _–well-_ corner. The boy with the beanie stumbles backwards, palms up in front of him as a universal signal of defense, knit hat falling anew.

"Whoa, relax Dr. Doom," he says hastily, shoving his chest to put some distance between them. Best friends or not, the proximity was a tad bit unnerving. "It's all good."

"So she read it?" Adam nods, and Eli exhales in relief. "Thanks for doing this for me, Adam. It means a lot."

"It's a just a note," he shrugs, pulling open the fridge. He pokes his head inside, taking out a fresh carton of milk. "So, you seem a little better today. What do you have up your sleeve?"

Seeing Eli grimace, he tore his lips away from the carton opening and swallowed deeply. "Okay, so you look like you've been to hell and back. But seriously, you have a plan, don't you?"

"No, I'm anticipating that she'll walk right through that door any moment now and tell me that her parents have gave us their blessing and that we can get married and live happily ever after."

"Ouch. That's a tad optimistic, don't you think?"

"I don't-"

A loud banging sound disrupted their conversation, causing Adam to spit out his milk into the sink. Eli makes a disgusted face, but his attention is diverted towards the continuous banging sound- it's urgent, persistent, and coming from the door.

"Serial killer," Adam mouths, eyes wide with fear.

Eli shakes his head, glancing at the door once again. Swiftly he makes his way over to it, taking a deep break to compose his nerves. Behind him, Adam is holding a pitch axe over his head.

He doesn't question it.

Slowly, warily, he reaches towards the knob, startled again by how loud the banging has gotten. Adam shoots him another fearful look, gulping. He twists the knob, opening the door to reveal…

"Pizza delivery!" Adam screams.


	5. Idiot

**I'm one of those people who has those days where I'm so in the zone and I'm writing and everything is perfect and beautiful and wonderful and I'm coherent and everything **

**but then**

**I remember I'm a teenager with teenage problems**

**then I'm in a literal slump for the next 39482309 years**

* * *

For the longest second, Eli's at a full-blown state of shock.

"Hah," Adam snickers to himself. "_I'm so funny_."

"What are you doing here?" Eli asks, absolutely confounded. "I thought-"

"Eli, I'm not going back," Clare stifles a choked, sad sob. It doesn't even occur to him that her hair resembles a tangled bird's nest, or that it's minus ten degrees outside and she's only wearing a thin night gown- clad only in a sheer cotton fabric, the girl doesn't even shiver from the cold. Though he is quite cognizant that she appears to be a mess, he perceives it as immense distress if anything. Her eyes are large, frightened, and traumatized, shining from the thin film of tears that are so resilient, they don't even roll down her flushed cheeks.

She's doing a damn good job of holding it all in, and all the red flags come flying up.

"Clare," Eli whispers, remaining rooted to the ground. "What happened?"

Adam, suddenly realizing the gravity of the situation, clears his throat briefly to collect himself. "Yeah, um, I'll go get you a blanket."

Clare nods, murmuring a quick _thank you _as she hesitantly steps inside the house. Her arms are tightly wounds around her shoulders, and soon something in Eli clicks. He finds it in his feet to move forward and shut the door, sealing the warm temperature inside with a quiet close.

"I had a fight with my mom. Some things were said, and….she thinks that I'm being childish for having feelings," she explains, feeling the acid taste on her tongue. "And out of nowhere, they're suddenly telling me that they want to move, and-"

The loudest, most deafening sound cuts her off, and the door almost bursts open from the impact. Clare's eyes widen at once, and Adam scurries over to the windows and peers outside.

"Clare, I think it's your dad," he says frantically.

She rushes over next to him, making she was hidden behind the curtains before looking out.

"Oh my God, they're here!" she whisper-shrieks, ripping off her blanket Adam wrapped around her and making a bee-line for the coffee table. Attempting to push the heavy piece of furniture against the door, she shoves it with all the strength she could muster. "Adam, give me a hand!"

He darts over to her, and the table slides across the floor with a wince-worthy screech. Gritting his teeth, Eli hurries to snap all the blinds shut, thanking the Heavens that his car was safely stored in the garage. Hell knows what they might do to poor Morty if they knew their daughter is with him.

"_Clare Diana Edwards!_" a blood-curdling scream pierces their eardrums from through the admittedly thick walls.

So maybe they do know.

None of them stops what they're doing. Once the table is firmly pushed up against the wooden door, Eli grabs Clare's hand and runs down the stair, Adam at their tail. The door is practically about to explode at her father's attempt to push it open. What the hell he's using, they really don't want to know.

The basement is dark and spooky, the creaky staircase and collection of cobwebs making it a tad more than obvious that the floor was neglected by the two boys. Clare had never been in the lowest floor of their house before, and she finds that her feet are tripping all over the place from panic. As Eli expertly weaves them through countless boxes and other stuff strewn across the cold ground, Clare reaches out blindly and seizes Adam's wrist. The boy with the beanie is more terrified than he's ever been before, and so he holds onto Clare's hand as if his safety depends on it. It's his house, his friends- it would not be unreasonable to say that he's just as involved as either of the two.

"In here," Eli hisses, making sure Adam and Clare were in the room before locking the door behind him.

The only light that shines into the tiny storage closet is from the large vent straight above them, the very one that would lead them to the living room. Otherwise, they'd be in completely blackness.

"Eli, where are we?" Clare asks in alarm, evidently frightened by both the circumstances and their current location.

"Basement store room," he whispers. "We keep dried food and other stuff we don't care about in here."

The three of them fall into silence immediately after, ears strained to hear the continuous sounds of banging one floor above. Muffled angry scream could still be heard.

"I'm sorry…for showing up so unexpectedly. I'm sorry for bringing all my baggage here," she apologizes in a hushed tone, bowing her head. "I just couldn't be around my parents anymore."

He gazes at her- or at least, what he thinks is her- , so miserable and strained, he can't help but crumble in her presence. Even just being around her, he can feel the weight of the world slowly crushing her, and embraces her tightly in an attempt to comfort her. If only it was possible to transfer all the pain she's burdened with onto himself, so that she wouldn't have to hurt in this way.

"Don't say that, Clare," he murmurs into her ear. "Your shit is my shit."

"_We all shares shits_," Adam giggles in a sing-song voice, earning himself a smack in the back of his head. "Hey, now! I'm just trying to lighten up the situation here."

A small, quiet laugh escapes Clare's lips.

"_Lighten," _she repeats amusedly. "Because it's like, dark in here."

"Hah," Adam snorts, nudging Clare's ribs. "I get it."

An exceptionally thunderous bang sends them all ten feet in the air.

"You two are hilarious, really," Eli says sarcastically. "And of course, this is the appropriate time to be joking."

"We joke appropriate jokes at inappropriate times," Adam shrugs.

"We can't be tamed," Clare sighs.

"Unless you want us to joke inappropriate joke at appropriate times, then, well…"

"_CLARE EDWARDS WE _KNOW _YOU ARE IN THERE," _someone roars. _"IF YOU ARE NOT OUT IN TEN…"_

The light, joking atmosphere ceases, and they continue to drown in the intensity of the situation once again. Their smiles drop, and anxious frowns take place.

"No, no, no they're going to do it again," Clare whimpers, curling up in a ball against Eli's chest. "Ouch!" she yelps, ripping away and rubbing her sore cheek.

"What are you talking about?" Adam inquires worriedly.

"No," Eli says after eyeing her in the dim lighting. He shakes his head, mouth falling open. She doesn't even have to explain, and it all clicks for him."No, no, no, you don't mean…"

A long pause ensues.

"She and my dad like to take turns," she finally admits. "When I don't do exactly what they say, they get… angry. They don't think about it, and it just…Eli? Eli, what are you…"

His breathing is suddenly rapid, more heavy and laboured with every pained word she says. His body had this sort of instinctive reaction where when it registers Clare's pain, the horrible things she had to abide, he goes into a panicked, angry, shocked, sad kind of mode. It's a pretty intense reaction, but honestly speaking, he knows he can do _much _worse. He's fiercely protective of Clare, so there is a lengthy list of things that can happen to her that would drive him into a conniption- the one that would elicit the most violent reaction from him isn't something he has to think much about. The thing about Clare, is that she's strong. She's the type of person who can look at something she's deathly afraid of straight in the eye, and move straight on forward without the slightest bit of faltering. She's a fighter. She's good at persevering, in spite of the many things that shaken her to the core. No, Eli's freaking out doesn't have much to do with her incapability of holding onto even the worse situations, it's the fact that he's so utterly dependant on her , it scares him to think something awful can happen to her. Her susceptibility to illnesses to due to her delicate stature and horrendous living conditions doesn't help much, either, and it was just natural for him. Natural to take on the role of the protector in their relationship. Natural to completely flip out when he hears that his one of his greatest fears is becoming a reality.

"How many times?" he utters out, squeezing his eyes shut.

She hesitates.

"Clare, tell me," he begs.

"A lot," she says in a small voice, clutching her blanket tighter. She eyes him carefully, and now seeing his distraught state, it's her turn to break a little. "Eli, please don't beat yourself up because of this. This is something I have to deal with on my own."

"Hold on a second here," Adam says, holding Clare's elbow to divert her attention towards him in the dark. "Clare, I'm not expert, but I'm pretty sure that qualifies as child abuse. You can report this kind of stuff."

"Do you think I haven't thought of that yet? Adam, if child services find out, they're going to take me away. Far, far away from both of you," she says, face contorting in pain. "Either way, I lose."

"Oh," he says quietly.

"How could I have not known?" Eli murmurs to himself, buying his face into his palm. "Clare…I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry."

"Hey," she says, gently holding his chin. "We move on, remember?"

"Hey guys, do you hear anything?" Adam suddenly says, perking up his ears. It doesn't matter to him that he's cutting right through another love-dovely moment. He's grown accustomed to it.

The banging had ceased, as the yelling did as well. For a short second, it seemed as if they had left.

"It's quiet," Eli notes, wrinkling his nose.

"Do you think…they left?" Adam says hopefully.

But while the boys loosened up quite a bit, Clare remains as tense as ever, eyes refusing to blink and mouth in a stiff line. She doesn't breathe.

"I don't hear them. Maybe I should go out and investigate," Eli mumbles, starting to fumble for the door knob.

"_Clare, we know you're in here."_

Eli freezes.

Adam curses violently in an undertone.

Clare sucks in a ragged breath.

"_If you ever try to run away again, it'd be prudent of you to remember not to leave the back door open- but let's be realistic now, you won't be escaping like that again. You are in a massive amount of trouble, Clare Diane, and when we find you…"_

Helen sounded eerily calm, bordering deadly. It was…mocking, and as it she was treating it like a game.

Assuming that they had already searched the entire first floor, and that Randall was searching up in the bedrooms, they were getting frightening close. And it being so silent, the sound of their hearts pounding could be heard a mile away. They cup their mouth and nose to lessen the sound of their breathing, clammy hands almost trembling against their faces.

Clare grips Eli's shirt with one of her fists, feeling quite literally that they're in a life-or-death situation.

"We're gonna die!" Adam whisper-shrieks.

Eli gives him a look he can't see, and creaks open the door just enough so that he could see her figure moving about. Even at that slightest sound, Helen whips her head around in their direction, sending Eli in a near cardiac-arrest when her beady eyes zeros in on them. Sweat dripping down his temples, he endeavours to minimize any more sound coming from their closet.

She advances, her footsteps as light and soundless as feather.

_Shit. _

"_Father_," Clare prays desperately in an undertone, breathing into Eli's ear. "_Have mercy on us all._"

Another few steps are taken towards them.

And this would probably be the worst time to think about Clare's faith, but Eli does. He does, and for a fraction of a second, he considers praying to a God he doesn't believe in.

Two, maybe three steps remain.

_Maybe it won't be that hard. It'll just be like talking to himself._

She stops, reaching for the doorknob.

But then Eli thinks against it, and he does something so impulsive and stupid, he deserved an award in the Hall of Fame for idiocy. Impeccable timing, really, something that would make Bullfrog look like a brilliant genius. With great, sudden force, he shoves open the door, thinking that if he was going to get caught anyway, he'd at least make it seem like some of it was intentional.

And so he whips the door right open, smashing Clare's mother square in the face.


	6. Conniving Eli

"….whoops." Eli smiles nervously, an anxious chuckle escaping his lips. He glances at Clare, an apologetic look on his face.

"I'm afraid to ask," Clare says all in one quick breath, looking at Eli with wide eyes. She freezes on the spot, debating whether she should step out or not.

"Oh my God," Adam says, looking horrified. He clumsily hops over the pile of dried beans lying on the floor and scurries out front. "She's unconscious."

And sure enough, the austere woman lay still with all her extremities poking out in odd directions. The fine lines from frowning and scowling so much remained evident on her face, not as strained as they would be if she had been awake. The most noticeable of all, however, was the blood oozing down her nostrils and pooling onto her once-clean blouse. The bright scarlet absorbs into what Clare knows is her favourite shirt, seeping through the cotton material and just making overall a nasty mess.

"Oh no," Clare gasps, rushing over to Adam's side. She gets kneels down beside her mother, gingerly tilting her chin back.

"She might choke if you do that," he warns.

"Wait, guys, this might be a good thing," Eli says vaguely, setting his index finger so that it was resting against his teeth. In his head, Clare could see all the wheels turning and light bulb flickering on, and she was unsure of whether to feel reassured by his epiphany. Her boyfriend is nothing short of brilliant, conniving, and witty, for sure- realistic, though? That's another story.

"Enlighten us please, Goldsworthy. How is it is that you've devised a plan that would prevent this monster from wrecking havoc in our home?"Adam asks loudly, his sarcasm spiking up in level of subtlety due to panic. The way he referred to Clare's mother could be viewed as humorous exaggeration from an outsider.

Only very few know what she is capable of and willing to do.

Only few know how her voracious thirst for the control of her daughter had led her to extensive measures.

Forbidding her to see Eli is understandable- strongly disagreed upon, but arranged marriage was not an uncommon thing. But to the extent of shutting down every other aspect of her daughter's social life, allotting certain time periods for showering and sleep, and pretty much planning out her entire future, Helen had reached an all-time high for the past few months. And Randall followed his wife blindly with the pent-up anger originating from the mess of their marriage.

They were as transparent as a flimsy sheet of white paper, really.

"We have to wait for her to wake up," he says simply.

"And wait for all of hell to break loose? No thank you," Adam stands up, brushing off the dust that collected on his bottom.

"No, listen," he urges, walking around behind her head. He attempts to lift her up. "If she finds that we haven't fled the scene, she may be the least bit grateful. She might realize that we're not all that bad."

With the aid of Clare, they move her to the abandoned couch sitting in the corner of the main room. Seeing how her position would ensure a neck cramp when she wakes up, Eli adjusts her head so that it rests comfortably on a pillow he found on the floor.

"This is crazy." Adam mutters. "She's going to go on a rampage when she realizes what happened."

"I think…I would have stayed regardless," Clare admits. "I don't want to risk her hating me anymore than she does now. And she is my mother."

"She doesn't hate you, Clare," Eli says soothingly, lacing his fingers through hers.

"Yeah, she's just a little knocked-up in the head," Adam jokes.

"Just trust me," Eli coaxes.

"You know what I'm going to find some rope just in case," Adam muses, already starting to rummage through some boxes. "Just in case."

"Adam," Clare scolds.

"What? You two can go inside the room and do whatever the hell you guys usually do when you think I'm not looking," he suggests defensively. "Let the master at work."

"You know, I'm not completely averse to doing that," Eli grins cutely. He pokes her side playfully." So whaddaya say?"

"No tying my mother Adam," Clare wags a stern finger at him, evoking a pout out of him.

"Eli, take her away," he whines. "She's ruining my fun."

"She's going to kill us all if she finds rope- Eli!"

"Shh, relax," he hushes, tugging her towards the closet again. "We have some time before she wakes up. We need to um, collect ourselves."

Frowning deeply, Clare starts to blindly fumble around for the walls in search for a light switch. "Is there- Eli, does a light switch even exist down here?"

A dim, blue light suddenly comes to life, giving an eerily glow to both their pallid faces. Eli sets his phone on a cardboard box beside them, and then smirks amusedly at her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I hadn't noticed before…" his smirk just widens.

"What?"

He hooks one finger around the hem of her night gown, lifting it up slightly. The way he's studying it, it unnerves Clare in the most heart-provoking way. She follows his gazes down too, but all she sees is the thin yellow material of her pyjamas.

"Your dress is see-though, darling," he whispers, eyes never tearing away.

A cool surge of lust travels through her body, and the feeling of her clothes seem to disappear altogether under his scrutiny. She gulps, and it takes a second for her instincts to kick in. She pushes his hand away and turns his back to him, cheeks flushing and heating up at not only the humiliation of not knowing in the first place, but also the intimacy associated with the situation.

"Stop looking at me like that," she says, scrunching her shoulders together. "We have more important matters on hand."

"I know," he says, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her torso. He rests his chin on her shoulder, sighing heavily. "We'll have to reasons with her. Beneath every hard shell is a soft core."

"And what if she doesn't listen? When has she ever listened to what I say? How can you be sure of this, Eli?" Clare says desperately.

"All I know is that life's too short to wonder _what if_," he murmurs reassuringly. Clare turns slightly to face him, and despite the dark, sees the confidence blazing in his eyes.

It'll all rest in his hands, now.

Then without warning, a nasty shriek emanates from the main room, jerking the pair away from their moment of intimacy.

"_What is this?"_ Helen hisses in outrage, struggling very much to free her arms and legs from the tight bound.

Eli and Clare stop dead in their tracks, jaws dropping straight to the floor at the sight. Adam certainly hadn't been exaggerating upon calling himself a master, because she resembles extraordinarily closely to a cocoon. Like a caterpillar with a bad temper, Helen thrashes about, rolling and wiggling in a futile attempt to break free of Adam's handiwork. Her face is bright red from both fury and the exertion.

"_Adam_!" Clare shrieks, hand flying to her chest.

"Let-me-go-this-_instances_, you group of-miscreants!" Helen bellows, baring her teeth. For one horrible minute, Eli was terrified that she would break free from all the thrashing about she was doing. He pales at the mere thought of it. But the ropes seem to stay tightly around her body, refusing to loosen up even a little bit to allow any space for even a finger curl.

"Ms. Edwards," Eli begins bravely, stepping forward. "With all due respect-"

"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY!" she screams, looking more and more like she's having a tantrum. "RANDALL! RANDALL!"

"He left," Adam says in a low, evil sort of way. "I heard the back door close just a while ago."

"Ms. Edwards, we don't want to hurt you," Eli continues, as if he had not been interrupt. Helen's eyes narrow in to beady little circles. "All we want to do is reason with you."

"Never in all my years-"she starts furiously.

"For once in your life, can you please just listen?" Clare says sharply, silencing her at once. Helen peers at them disdainfully, but says nothing.

"Honestly speaking, why do you believe Jake is the most suitable candidate for Clare, and not myself?" Eli inquires calmly.

"The most obvious reason being that you have turned her against us," she says scornfully. "Clare never has disobeyed us until _you _came along!"

"I see," Eli nods. "And do you think that if it had been any other boy, Clare would act the same?"

"Well-I-" she splutters, as if at a loss for words. Clare lowers her head to hide the small smirk crawling up her face.

"If Clare had fallen in love with someone else, I believe you wouldn't withhold the same kind of resentment you hold for me, correct? As it is, that you only disapprove of me," he says smoothly.

"Jake is the best match for Clare," Helen says irrelevantly. "He's level-headed, practical, handsome-"

"And certainly not after your fortune, as conveniently, his father owns the largest construction company in the country," Eli continues shrewdly, raising an eyebrows. Helen opens and closes her mouth as if to speak, but not having the slightest clue of what to say. "I expect he has loads of money coming from there- all of which Jake would inherit, seeing how he's the only child and without a mother."

No one could doubt now that Eli hadn't earned the reputation of being a conniving manipulator for nothing.

"So I'd been wrong about Jake the entire time," Clare says, half-impressed by Eli's approach, half-stunned by the new information. "He's not the gold-digger here….it's _you._"

"Ooooooooh," Adam drawls for effect, hand cupped around his mouth.

"You don't care about me. All you want is the money," Clare shakes her head disapprovingly, looking extremely offended.

"He's the key to our survival, Clare," her mother says gruffly, with an air of humiliation, angry, and desperation. "We _need _him."

"Dad's a lawyer- doesn't he make enough money?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I expect there's something more to it than that," Eli says, daring to take a few steps towards the lying heap of rope. He pauses, taking a moment to ponder upon this thought, leaving Helen to sweat silently on the ground. "You haven't lost your life savings, by any chance, have you?"

"Never!" she says indignantly, turning redder.

"You have!" Clare gasps. "How could you do that?"

"This is so much better than _Titanic__**," **_Adam says with wide eyes. Eli shoots him a look. "Not that I…watched it before or anything," he adds hastily.

"Forget it, Clare- all you need to understand is that everything lays on your shoulder," Helen says urgently, deliberately laying the pressure thickly on her. "Do you want us to lose our house? Our belongings? And perhaps live off of Welfare? Do you want that for us, Clare? Do you?"

"I…" She stands frozen, with a horrified expression on her face.

"You could live with Adam and me," Eli tells her. His throat sounds constricted as well.

But what exactly was the right thing to do here? Sure, Clare's parents had been abysmally horrible to her, mistreating her and abusing her in more ways than one. At the end of the day, they were still her parents, and it would always be difficult to walk away from that. They had given her food, shelter- love could be excluded from the list, but a place in the world. Could she be as cruel as to turning her back on that?

On the other hand, Eli- without him, she'd be cold. Lonely, and lost. She lost him once, and she knows she wouldn't be able to bear losing him again. They had gone through so much shit together, it'd be a shame to throw that all away. She would surely miss his smile, his laughter, his eyes- God, his _eyes. _How would she even live with herself if she had to live with Jake?

"Please, Clare," Helen implores, looking straight in her eyes. And for the first time in Clare's life, she looks _afraid._

"Clare," Eli whispers, taking her hand gently.

She has a choice to make.


	7. Unexpected

"There has to be another way," Clare says weakly, staggering backwards in defeat. She feels torn, to say the least, though it's not the money that leaves her indecisive- the money matters little to her, quite actually. Her mind is transfixed upon the image of her superior mother, grovelling on the dirty ground of an alley wearing only a filthy rag. Her father greedily wolfing down food he had found in the dumpster bin, as a swarm of flies hovering above their grimy state of being…she shivers involuntarily. She feels as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice-cold water down her night gown.

"Are you seriously considering this?"Adam says in outrage. "She ruined your life Clare!"

"You will be quiet now, little boy," Helen says coldly, glaring lethally at Adam. "Don't speak of things you don't understand."

"Clare, you know what you want," Eli says patiently, with nothing but tender love in his eyes. He reaches over and clasps her hand, pretending not to notice the way Helen writhes on the floor. "I trust you to follow your heart."

Again, Eli ignores Helen, and this time the gagging sounds she makes.

"How could you be so heartless?" Helen says rhetorically, bleakly. She shakes her head in disapproval, and Eli narrows his eyes at her from behind Clare. She certainly thrives in manipulator, as he knew, she was no beginner. "Leaving your own mother to rot." She clicks her tongue for effort, sending Clare into a higher state of panic.

"That's not- oh dear," she whimpers, caving under the pressure.

_Damn you for using Clare's good heart_, Eli thinks infuriately. He knows what she wants. She knows what she wants. Clare's just too kind for her own good, and Helen knew damn-well that it's her greatest weakness. He clears his throat, drawing her attention towards him again.

"Clare, you deserve to be happy," Eli urges gently, caressing her hands with his thumb. His dark green eyes try to penetrate through her blue, trying to reason with her. Trying to get her to stand her ground, and not be swayed and manipulated into doing something she doesn't want to do. The tension is turned on to the max.

Helen seems to realize what is going on, and accepts the challenge willingly.

"Clare, your mother always knows what's best for you, even when you cannot see it," she says in false sweetness. Eli winces. "Mommy knows it will be good for you in the long-run. It will be good for the entire family in the future. Do you want to lose your family, is that it?"

Clare's eyes flicker back and forth between the two of them, widening to the size of dinner plates. She wrings her clammy hands in the terror of making a terrible mistake, lips clamped together as if by the means of glue.

"Family doesn't always have to be biological- Adam and I are your family, too," he says softly, desperately hoping for Clare to channel the desires of her heart, rather than her head. He's starting to lose her, and he can see it. The coolness ceases, and he freezes over with the prospect of having the girl he dearly loves twisted away from his grasps. The pleading in his voice grows more prominent, accompanied by a slight hoarseness. Losing her is simply not an option.

And in the midst of all this, Eli can't deny that he feels deeply hurt by Clare's indecision. Her happiness, her desires easily topple everything else on his list of priorities- is it not the same for her? He has suspected all along that he loves her more than she loves him, and he was fine with it. But when her love for him is truly put to the test, it pains him horribly to see his false perception of their wonderful love melt into its true conditional state. It's like watching your dreams crumble under the weight of reality.

_Sometimes love isn't enough._

"Listen to me," he says in a quiet, desperate tone. He takes both her trembling hand in his, holding them with as much care and devotion as he could. "You have to stop pleasing everyone, because in the end, you're going to be miserable. I don't want to turn your against her mother- I never wanted that for you. I wanted them to accept me on their own account, but I can see that it's not going to happen. But that's okay for me, because there's nothing else in the world that matters more to me than your happiness. I know you, Clare- you don't want to marry Jake."

"You seemed to have thought I should stay with him before," she whispers, though not in a bitter, resentful way. The girl is deeply troubled, anxious to erase every doubt lingering in her mind. Little things must be reassured, as they suddenly hold a greater deal than before.

"That was only because I saw how hard it was for you to be with me," he says emotionally. He gazes intently at her, as if he can see straight through her soul. And when she stares back with the same kind of ardency, it's as if she can see the whole scene playing through in his eyes- their tortuous kiss, their pained conversation ringing in her head- It's like she can read his mind.

"I thought it was because you thought we were too impossible to work out," Clare says in a small, frightened voice, and from here on she knows how the situation is truly messing with her head. It's resulting in her doubting his love, and right now, it doesn't seem so absurd.

"Of all the times I've told you I love you, you're still having doubts?" Eli says poignantly, looking wounded.

"Then tell me," Clare begs, gripping him until her knuckles turn white. "Would you still love me if I do what's best for my family?"

Her words have an earth-shattering, ground-breaking effect, heavier than if someone dropped a brick on his heart, more hurtful than if he was shredded apart whole.

Blood.

It rushes down to his feet, leaving him whiter than a sheet of paper.

Agony ripping through his body, numbing and throbbing.

"Yes," he whispers.

"Then it's all settled," Helen says in what was meant to be a lukewarm voice. But there's no mistaking the undeniably gleeful smugness seeping through each words, heartless and brutal in every way. "You there, boy- untie me."

Adam silently proceeds to do so, having not excepted things to turn out the way they had. He averts his gaze, focusing only on the ropes.

His eyes want to close. He feels as if all the energy has been sucked out of him, leaving him with nothing but a body and a limp grey heart. He wants to curl up in a ball and grieve where no one can see him, but he doesn't for one reason- he doesn't want to waste any time he has left with her.

So brokenly, and without any bit of fire left in him, he leans forward for one final kiss. This is it. It's been decided, it's been confirmed. At the carnival is nothing, because even then he had the slightest glimmer of hope that fate would work in their favour. He had an extra day with her, and he should be grateful. There's no denying it, this is the end.

It's cruel how bittersweet the kiss is, because she tastes sweeter than anything else in the world and feels softer than anything else in the world. His eyes are shut tighter than tight, and every bit of him is aching and hurting- it's worth it, though, that short moment of bliss at his lips. He savours it with his entire life, and all too soon it's over.

"Come now, Clare," Helen says briskly, finally standing upright. Dignity regained and hair fixed, she outstretches her hand, beckoning her to take it. "Your father and Jake will be waiting."

"I love you," Eli says through his constricted throat, for what might be the last time.

Clare looks at her mother's outstretched hand oddly, and makes no move to take it.

"Clare," Helen says a little more impatiently. "We have a lot of packing to do, let's go."

"I'm not going with you," she says, rather confused by her actions. "I want to be with Eli."

Cue Eli's heart dropping onto the ground with a thud and flying back up again at incredible speed.

Helen looks thunderstruck, and begins to splutter unintelligible things. "But-you-wha?"

Clare gives a peculiar, thoughtful kind of smile that's small, but there all the same. She laces her fingers through Eli's tarrying ones, sending a surge of immense hope through the veins that had just been dying a short while ago.

_No…_Eli's eyes are wide awake.

"I'm sorry," she says, "but I can't be used by you anymore. Just for once, I want to choose what I do."

"So leave before I call the police," Adam throws in, folding his arms together sternly. Beneath the harsh lines of his frown, he looks positively delighted to be telling Helen off, and Clare smiles shortly at him.

"Clare!" Helen gapes at her.

"Good-bye mother," she says peacefully.

For the next long while, the four of them stand in that dark basement in utter silence. Nobody breathes. Nobody even moves.

"Fine," Helen snaps angrily, sounding like a troublesome teen that has been told she couldn't have it her way. "Have it your way! When you two break up, don't come crying to me!"

She turns on her heels storms off, stomping up the stair with as much noise as she could make. Adam stares at the walls, shaking his head. The front doors then slam so hard, the whole house vibrates.

They're finally alone.

"Clare," Eli says bemusedly. His voice is dry, as if he hadn't spoken in years.

"You told me you would still love me, even if I married someone else. Eli, there's no competition," she laughs lightly. "I belong with you."

"Plus, you've taken enough shit from her," Adam adds wholeheartedly. He pats Clare's back. "You did the right thing, Clare."

"Do you regret it?" Eli asks softly. Of course his mind had to go to the worst, just of course.

"No," she says confidently. "I do wish it didn't end that way… but at least now…"

A glowing grin spreads across Eli's face as he realizes what Clare's getting at. He's sure he's about to burst from the wide range of emotions he's felt in such a short time span, and he doesn't care.

Because right now, they're free. They don't know how it had happened; all they're sure of is that it had been one hell of a ride.

"So…you're moving in?" Eli says hopefully, lighting up like a Christmas tree.

Clare smiles and chastely kisses him.

"As long as you want me to," she says gently, touching his lips. She traces the shape of his Cupid's bow, mesmerised by how soft and inviting they look. His breath is shallow and warm, all but begging her to kiss him again- this time, more deeply, and with more passion. What's stopping her, is that she's quite aware of their audience of one watching them intently, and while he's thrilled that their whirlwind of a problem seems to be resolved, his happiness would only be to a certain extent. Poor Adam has seen the two passionately involved more than once, and that was one time too many.

"I'll always want you," he promises fervently, returning the chaste kiss.

Only unintentionally, it morphs into something a little more zealous than he had planned.

Poor Adam.

* * *

**Thank you for taking the time to read this! (:**


	8. Unreasonable

***singsong* _Thank you thank you thank youuuuuuuuu _for the amazing support! **

**Read and enjoy!**

* * *

Adam, cheeks bulging with baloney sandwich, glares between the two sets of love struck eyes on either side of him.

"For the last time," he growls, as bits of bread come flying out of his full mouth, "whoever's playing footsie with me, knock the hell off."

"Sorry," they both mumble in unison, drawing backwards. With their sandwiches left untouched on their plates and their eyes never leaving one another's, the observable truth is that they aren't at all sorry- for the first time, they don't have to savour every second they have together. They don't have to worry about procrastinating their parting, or having to careen down the streets well over the speed limit in order to get Clare home in home. They needn't to fret over Helen barging in on them.

No worries, just an infinite stretch of time ahead of them filled to the brim with possibilities for exploration. There are places to see together, a physical relationship to set the pace of, things they would never have imagined doing in the near future. They had freedom, and yet, it would never fully satisfy their insatiable desire to be with one another. No, in secret, they both believed that as long as the leaves changed colours and snow continues to fall, they would always want more.

And to be honest, it frightened the hell out of them.

Between making their lunches, and between the cheerful banters between the three of them, Eli begins to find himself thinking above and beyond. The happiness, the feeling of a huge burden being lifted of his shoulders- it all seems to be too good to be true. More than he deserved, better than what he would gladly accept. It _terrifies_ him how in love he is with her, how easily she could be taken away from him- and dare he thinks, permanently. His own parents were so cruelly stolen away from him from a tragic case of overdosing and heartache, so what gives him the certainty that the same thing can't happen to Clare? The years of incessant mourning for his parents' death taught him just how precious human life is, how easily it can slip away in a second of carelessness. He tortures himself by fearing a repeat to further taint his innocence and ignorance.

"Lettuce, cheese, and ranch sauce," Clare chews approvingly. "A- plus to whoever made mine."

"All Eli, Adam says, sounding muffled. He swallows deeply, giving him a disgusted look. "Why didn't you put ham in it?"

"She hate ham," he says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. Because to him, it is.

Clare grins sheepishly at her meatless sandwich, as her thoughts, too, wanders far. It's no secret to her that she's in the most blissful state of being. Her footsteps are feather-light, as she practically glides and beams and glows in everything she's done in the past hour. There's a beautiful kind of indefiniteness she knows that lie ahead- a future so vast, so eternal, and yet she can't even see it.

But the doubt in her mind lingers, whether she likes it or not. She had thrown everything that meant the world to her away for a boy- her family, her home- . A boy whom according to her heart, is someone who she is certain would never pick up and leave. Eli is nothing if not loyal, she knows that with every fibre in her being. It nags her anyway, the unwavering doubt, because absolutely everything is depended on him.

Eli and Clare smile lovingly at each other, deciding silently to keep their worries locked away.

"So when are you going to get your stuff back?" Adam asks casually, chugging his glass of soda.

"Oh yeah," Clare suddenly remembers, frowning at the dilemma at hand. "All my belongings are with my-mom." She cringes at the last word.

"It's gonna be tough to get back," Adam munches encouragingly, pointing his second sandwich at her.

Eli's fingers 'walk' towards Clare's hand (though it looks more like a saunter, in her opinion) and climbs on top of it.

"Yeeees?" Clare asks, raising her eyebrow.

He grins.

"So I was thinking," he says seductively, gazing at her from beneath his eyelashes," that maybe we could celebrate our newfound freedom."

Clare smirks. "What do you have in mind?"

"He wants some ass," Adam says loudly, not even bothering to conceal the mashed up food in his mouth. "Don't give it to him Clare, you deserve better."

"We should celebrate, at the very least," Eli says persuasively, wiggling his fingers to fit between hers. He flashes her a white smile. "What do you think?"

"I don't think we've really done anything special in a long time," she says musingly. "But I can't go anywhere looking like this, so…"

"Why don't you text your parents? Tell them you'll be stopping by?" Eli suggests, but even he could detect the false optimism in his voice. _Yeah hey mom and dad, I just emancipated myself from you two an hour ago and gave you nothing but hell for the past year but I'm just going to barge right in and get all the stuff from my room than we can go back to ignoring each other's existence okay_

"Right," Clare says dully, looking dejected. Her shoulders slumped sorely, and she seems exceptionally reluctant to comply.

"Or," Eli quickly offers, "we can sneak up your bedroom window?"

The skeptism on her face doesn't waver.

"If we don't get caught," Clare says, looking deep in thought.

Eli snorts. "The window is usually unlocked from all the times I've snuck in and-"

Clare clears her throat unsubtly, looking pointedly at a curious, suddenly attentive Adam.

"-and did homework," Eli says hurriedly in an unconvincing voice.

Adam narrows his eyes, flickering between the flustering couple.

"And considering you live here now, I would call it breaking in, wouldn't you?" Eli winks, returning to his lunch.

"I don't have the proper footwear for this sort of ordeal," Clare purses her lips, beginning to break out of her short-lived reverie. She glances down at the pair of slippers she had put on haphazardly this morning. "I suppose you will have to gather all my things for me."

At first, Eli just looks up and smiles briefly, focusing for intently on the piece of tomato sticking out than anything else. But when he looks back at Clare again, he realizes that she isn't just kidding- in fact, she looks quite determined. As she lifts a serious brow, Eli gapes open-mouthed at her, as if a horn had sprouted from between her eyebrows. His half-eaten sandwich slips from between his fingers, landing as a graceful mess on his splattered white plate.

"Catching flies, now are you?" Adam says, peering casually into his open mouth. Eli snaps his trap shut at once, hastily scrubbing off the crumbs decorating his lips, but continues to stare at Clare with a look of unmistakable disbelief.

"You're joking," he says flatly, crossing his arms. "I was only kidding, you know that, right?"

"Doesn't matter if you were," Clare smirks rebelliously. "I think it's a fantastic idea."

"It doesn't bother you that your parents might flip their shit on us? Or call the police again? They're not afraid of acting rashly, Clare. You and I know that better than anyone else," Eli says incredulously, picking up his sandwich and attempting to eat it again. But as he is so busy gawking at Clare that he misses his mouth multiple times before he gets it in properly.

"So, what, are you scared of getting caught?" She says in a _live dangerously _kind of way.

"I'm only afraid of what they'll do to you," he says concernedly. "Everything is happening so fast- I don't want you to make a bunch of impulsive decisions with confidence fueled from your newfound freedom. You've been locked up for so long, it's only natural to be a little reckless."

"We've done this a million times before," Clare points out obstinately. "I don't see how this is any different."

"It was different," he says quietly. "It was all on my neck."

Truer words have never been spoken, as Clare realizes that all the times Eli had sneaked into her room, it was, in fact, on his neck. Eli would have most likely been blamed if they had been caught- the one time her father walked in on them, most of his anger had been directed towards him rather than her. He earned himself a screaming lecture, a deadly threat, and a shove out the door, her a stern warning to never let him in again. Of course, she only conceded when Eli had persuaded her the next day that it was perfectly safe. This time around, her parents would not let her off with only a scratch; not after she had permanently dishonored their family the moment she had choice Eli over them. There was not telling what they might do.

"So it's okay to risk your neck, but not mine?" Clare asks, not harshly nor accusingly.

"I care about you, that's all," Eli says in an undertone, not meeting her eyes.

Clare softens her voice considerably after that.

"Then what do you suggest I do? I can just repurchase a whole new wardrobe of clothes and toiletry all on one go. Especially not when I have perfectly good sets sitting at my ho- my parents' home."

"I don't know," he answers honestly. "Maybe I could get a second job or something and pitch it. It's not a big deal."

"Eli," she says reprovingly, but gently. "That's not very realistic. I need to get my own stuff, not but new ones. Your job at the auto shop is demanding enough as it is. You won't be able to find the time for another job, part-time or not."

"It's possible," he says stubbornly. "A night shift would give me time with you just the same."

"You're not being rational," Clare says. "You wouldn't be getting any sleep."

"Well, neither are you," he fires back, folding his arms across his chest."Rational, I mean."

Clare fidgets irritably, thoroughly annoyed by her boyfriend's protectiveness. The softness diminishes in an instant. "If you don't want to come, then fine. I'll go by myself or something."

"That doesn't make it any better," Eli says shortly.

"Well, I don't want you tiring yourself out silly because of me, so I guess we're both at ends here," she sniffs, narrowing her eyes.

The two glare stiffly at each other, both exasperated for different reasons. But on either side, they are annoyed at the other's adamancy, both equally unwilling to oblige.

"I volunteer as tribute," Adam says nervously, lifting his hand slightly.

"You'd do it?" Clare asks, looking pleasantly surprised.

Carefully avoiding his best friend's dangerous eyes, he nods slowly. He slouches down further when he feels Eli burning a hole on his forehead, having been more reluctant to take sides, but unable to resist edging onto Clare's- in his own opinion, which he's glad nobody asked him for, Eli was being quite irrational.

"That's great! Maybe after you're done, we can head off."

"Traitor," Eli mutters, with an ugly look on his face. Adam cranes his neck and looks sadly at the phone, hoping it would ring so he'd have an excuse to leave the dreadful argument about to erupt.

"Stop that," Clare says, bothered by his attitude.

"You're making a mistake," he growls.

"I'm not," she says fiercely. "Come on, you know you don't want to work all those extra hours."

"Your parents-" he begins vehemently.

"Won't know," Clare says firmly. "We'll slip through the open window, and we won't make a sound."

"You're returning to dangerous property after all you've been through?" he demands. "After all _we've_ been through?"

"I'm not following," she says curtly. "This isn't as risky as you-"

"Whatever," he says coldly, shutting her off. "Do whatever you want. Just don't expect me to come to the rescue when they try to get you back on _their_ side."

"What does that even mean?" Her eyes are no more than narrow, livid little slits now, mirroring Eli's to perfection.

"You know what I mean."

With a face of sheer aghast, Adam sinks even further down his seat, desperately wishing to be anywhere but here. "You're being unnecessarily difficult, Eli," Clare says, stung by his frosty tone. "You're the one who's always encouraging me to-"

"It's different this time," he reminds her irritably through gritted teeth, roughly shoving his plate aside. "You're not listening to me."

"Well you're not listening to-"

"I just don't see the point of throwing everything out on the line when they could very well change their minds-"

"_Will you stop interrupting me_?" Clare raises her voice sharply. Her lower lip appears to be quivering angrily, a sure warning sign that she is reaching the end of her patience. Eli, however pays no heed, and looks as if he's set in stone.

They glare daggers at each other in silence again, just daring the other to bend. The heated tension rises as quickly as it had formed, their muscles clenching involuntarily from the frustration of being unable to get their message across. Crystal blue and forest green clash, producing an uncomfortable static-type feel that drifts in the air between them. No talking, just soundless combating.

Eli finally breaks the ice, after what seems like forever."If you want to risk losing me again, then go on right ahead. I'm not going to stop you." he says bitterly, getting up in sharp huffiness and proceeding to storm up the stairs. He takes two steps at a time, purposely making a racket as he does.

Adam glances anxiously at Clare, whose fists are clenched tightly in her lap.

"You're blowing things way out of proportion," she yells after him, shooting up from her seat. Her chair topples over behind her, and Adam does as much as scrunch his face in discomfort.

The sound of a door slamming hard causes the lights dangling above them to tremble. Clare inhales sharply, part of her wanting to stalk up right after him and talk some sense into him, part of her bubbling over from anger and wanting to let out some more steam by screaming at him, and the last, rather small part, urging her to walk away. To breathe in some fresh air, to clear her mind before she said something she's regret. Her feet are temporarily rooted to the spot, shaking from rage.

It takes a while before she decides which part to listen to.

* * *

** A interesting little cliffhanger that I'd like to leave up to you- which part should Clare listen to? ;)**


	9. Rings

God, he infuriates her so much, and it's over the stupidest thing ever. Worst yet, he wouldn't even explain why he was so aggravated; Eli resorted to locking himself in his room- tucked away from her, refusing to face the problem he had started. If there's one bad quality about him, it's that he's as stubborn as hell when it comes to explanations. Communication is what they lack for the most part, the prime source of their disputes.

Clare angrily excuses herself from the table and stalks off, grabbing Adam's jacket on the way and shoving the backyard screen door behind her. The air is icy, ruthlessly stabbing her legs and face from the moment she stepped out into the cold. Again her nightgown has proven itself to be inadequate against the frosty temperature, and in her intense exasperation she considers ripping the thin clothing article off and inviting the bitter cold to bite her skin. She needs some sort of outing for her aggravation, and doing something recklessly unavailing is usually quite satisfying. However, her chattering teeth plead against it, and so she grumbles and settles for stomping roughly on the crunchy snow. Her bare toes curl in protest against the coldness, but she obstinately continues to stomp in frustration.

"He's so- ugh!" she mutters furiously, wrapping her arms around her torso. There's probably a better way to define it, but her mind is too clouded with rage to think of it. _Could ugh be a feeling, because that's how I feel ninety-nine percent of the time._

She shivers, squinting through the thick evergreen trees. In the parking lot beyond the yard, an old man was cheerfully walking along with a kind-faced lady on his arm. Clare scowls bitterly, feeling resentful rather than touched by the wonderful show of long-lasting love before her.

"That's Mr. and Mrs. Paul," Adam murmurs from somewhere behind her. She had been so wrapped up in her anger, she hadn't noticed his presence. He gingerly wraps a thick woolly blanket around her shoulders- the same one he had lent her earlier. "They live in the neighbourhood. They've been married for over forty-five years. Has their fair share of fights, I can tell you that."

"They seem so happy, though. They don't seem like the fighting type," Clare says in an undertone, watching the older couple smile at each other.

"You can hear them sometimes in the night," he says, eyeing them as well. "It can go on for hours, the two of them."

"What do they fight about?" she asks grudgingly, mostly out of curiously.

"Oh, little things," he shrugs meaningfully. "Once about their grandson and how he's choosing to live his life. Apparently, Mr. Paul doesn't like too much that he's living in a condo. Says he'll attract more robbers that way, living an ostentatious life. Mrs. Paul thinks it's more practical for him, having so many kids. He needs a lot of space, and a measly apartment wouldn't do much for him."

"But obviously Mrs. Paul was right, wasn't she? It's a more practical and realistic alternative."

Adam shakes his head. "Mr. Paul just wants the best for him, what's the most safe. It's not the most reasonable choice, but all he ever wants is for his grandson to be secure. It's in his best interest, anyway."

"I suppose," she says thoughtfully. "What happened?"

"They failed to see things through each other's eyes. They were too hell-bent on proving their point, they hadn't even tried to find reason on the other's side, "he says quietly. The older couple were now gone, and have probably ambled off still arm-in-arm. "Once they realized that, it was just a matter of civilly sharing their own perspectives and being open to the other's."

Clare says nothing, thinking about the happy elder couple. She wants that, that undying kind of love. The type that never wavers or fades, where she could still look him in the eyes and see the guy she loved fifty years ago. She then thinks of Eli, and how ridiculous their fights are most of the time. How they drag on with more intensity than necessarily. This could only means two things- it could mean that they were strong, managing to stay together after all they been through. They aren't perfect; they aren't anywhere near being perfect. But as they are still in each other's lives despite the many hardships, it could be directly translated as insuperable strength of love- _their love. _On the other hand, it could mean that they weren't improving as long as they continued to fight. It may only be a matter of time before they broke it of completely, due to the amount of unhealthy, escalating frustration and anger towards each other.

"I want that," she whispers longingly. "What they have."

"You're dead close," Adam says encouragingly, a hint of a smile on his face. He's frightening good at balancing out goofiness and sageness, maintaining his role as their neutral friend to perfection. He's Eli's best friend, so Clare finds it odd that he had came to her rather than him. She's not complaining, though. In terms of stubbornness, they are both evenly matched- it's just that Eli tends to be a sliver more difficult to penetrate.

"Thank you," she says quietly, giving him a brief hug before striding towards the door.

Her feet find their way towards the stairs, her mind oddly cool and clear. Most of her anger had evaporated- as it would have, given enough time to cool down-. Soon enough, she discovers herself face-to-face to Eli's bedroom door, and takes a deep breath to compose herself. She hasn't a single clue what to say, but she knows something needs to be said.

Three brisk knocks, and she waits. No answer. She knocks thrice again, and soon the sound of his stereo blasting rings her eardrums. Evidently, he's nowhere near as ready to talk as she likes to think she is.

"Open the door please, Eli," she says loudly, jangling the locked doorknob.

The music grows louder, and even through the thick walls Clare finds herself cringing. He's obviously avoiding her.

"Eli, please!" she implores loudly, continuing to knock on the door.

No response.

She has no reason to feel offended and hurt, but she does- the painful sting of rejection prickles her heart, and now that she's somewhat more enlightened, Eli's unwillingness to answer to her is more alarming than it would have been.

"If we can't be mature about something as trivial as this," she says, trying desperately to be heard over the blaring music, "then how are we going to deal when something bigger blows up in our face?" She pauses to let that bit of information sink in, before proceeding forward. "Don't you think you can at least _try _to gain some perspective?"

Bad choice of words. The stereo is now turned up to what must be the max, because the ground begins to vibrate under her feet.

"Eli!" she calls, banging on the wooden door. "We have to talk about this! We have to…"

Still no response.

"Please," she whispers, gazing sadly at the knob. Hey eyes drop to her leg, which crumple under her in disappointment.

It's all a mistake. Moving in here, giving up her home life- everything. Now that she's here, and everything's riding on him, he has even a greater influence on her now, and that in itself is dangerous. What if this is it? What if she ruined her chance at everything because of a silly teenage love…?

At the sound of music lowering significantly, Clare lifts her head. His expression is weary, and most of the exasperation had diminished.

"What are you doing here?" he asks softly.

"It's not like before now, Eli," she says breathily, still craning her neck to meet his eyes- his tired, lustreless eyes. "We can't handle fight like we used to, because we're living together now. The frivolousness has to stop."

His eyes bore into hers, completely unfathomable. Clare hastens to scramble onto her feet, hastening to say what she has to say.

"You have to admit, we're both incredibly headstrong and difficult to be with. I think now…we have to tell each other what we think rather than forcing our own opinion. We have to compromise, and we have to stop locking ourselves away and it'll be hard but we have to work at it. Otherwise we'll just fall apart and I don't want that. I want to be with you for as long as I possibly can," she says earnestly, her supposed-to-be serious speech sounding more like an awkward ramble than anything else. She mentally winces, thinking of all the better words she could have used to better sway Eli.

But hell, he's not giving her any sign that he's taken in anything she's said, and it's beginning to slowly drive her insane. Not a single twitch of a facial muscle she could detect, not a frown or a smile. Her eyes don't even move from hers. Clare shifts, resisting the urge to grab his shoulders and shake them hard. She'd plop him in a blender and squeeze all his juices out if it means getting an answer.

"It's not the same anymore, is it?" he murmurs, with the same blank look.

"Does it bother you?" she blurts, almost instantly regretting saying this as soon as it comes out. "Did you only offer me a place here because you felt guilty? Do you really want me here?"

He peruses her even more carefully, if possible.

"It seems like we have a lot to talk about," he says quietly. "Why don't you come in?"

And so she nods, keeping her head down while following him into his bedroom. It's a little messy, nothing too terrible, but so _Eli _altogether. His walls are painted black, decorated with a wide assortment of posters of his favourite bands. There's a bookshelf filled with novels and notebooks crammed together, with the odd bits of paper sticking out. A few articles of clothing are strewn across the floor- of course, the only pair of boxers lying lone on the carpet is what first catches Clare's eyes. He sloppily kicks it under his unmade bed, patting a space for her to sit.

"I just…hate to think that I might risk losing you again," he says thickly, face buried in hands.

"You're not going to," Clare whispers, placing a gentle hand on the small of his back. She scoots closer towards, endeavouring to understand why is he's so worried.

"For the first time, I t-thought it was secure. It's like n-now, it's finally final, and suddenly you want to go back…it kills me, Clare. It kills me every time, but it after I thought we were settled for good…"

He inhales sharply, and for the first time, she's the most displeased that his anger had dwindled. Eli sounds like he's been hurting so much, and it breaks her heart to see it.

"I feel so cold knowing that you want to go back to that place- where they've tormented you, Clare When y-you told m-me they hit you..."

He breaks off, taking in another sharp draw of air. His shoulders tremble slightly. With the dead silence of the room, Clare can hear the sob rippling down his chest, and stifles a gasp. _He's crying._

"Anything can happen to you-to us," he says hoarsely, resurfacing. His once brilliant jade eyes are shinning with tears, rimmed with red. "You're the most precious thing to me, and it frightens the hell out of me."

It's there, lingering in the atmosphere, so palpable yet invisible. Eli had just revealed to her his greatest fear, and they were no longer treading a familiar depth of water. It's not about fighting anymore- though that is an important matter that needs to be addressed-. It's about need.

"I don't have tangible proof that you won't change your mind," he continues to whimper. "How can I..."

"I feel the same way," Clare laughs in spite of herself, in spite of the gravity of the situation. She caresses his back gingerly, as he leans into her. His head fits perfectly in the crook between her head and shoulder, and so she tilted her own head to rest on top of his. "It's not easy to think that my mom and dad aren't part of my life anymore. Even as awful as they are, a small part of me is going to miss them. A small part of me fears that you'll decide that this is all a mistake, and leave me."

He looks up at her abruptly. "Never."

She smiles sadly. "No tangible proof."

They sit there in thoughtful silence for a long time, perhaps lost in a cloudy haze of feelings, perhaps because they cannot think of anything else to say. Clare softly combs through his tangle of unkempt dark hair, occasionally letting her fingers slide down to the nape of his neck. He shudders in response, looking mildly pleased of her touch. After a while, Clare turns around to lightly kiss his dear head, able to see a single, glistening tear sit peacefully on his lashes. They're warm, despite the cool air.

"I have an idea," he whispers, face alight with inspiration. Careful not to cause too much movement that would disturb the serenity they created, he swiftly places both hands on either sides of her waist, lifting her up and onto his lap. Snaking his arms around her, he pulls off his black thumb ring and sets it on his open palm.

"I've never seen you without that before," Clare says softly, picking it up. "Your thumb looks so naked without it."

"I want you to have it," he says quietly, with such passion and tenderness and finality. He holds her tighter, resting his chin on her shoulder. The lone tear melts from his eyelashes, and slowly he begins to regain his state of well-being.

"Eli, you love this thing," she says, touching the black stone.

"I love you," he corrects, planting a chaste kiss on her neck. It's simple and innocent, but that about the gesture is what makes it so utterly affectionate. "You've heard of promise rings, before, haven't you?"

She hesitates, pondering over her own idea that had lit up in her head. Eli's ring safely in her fist, she tugs off the sliver band from around her ring finger, placing in his empty hand. It glitters prettily from the sliver of sunlight pouring through the crack between his curtains.

"In that case, I want you to have this," she whispers. "It probably won't fit around you finger-"

"Are you saying I have a fat finger?"

"-but we can find chains to wear around our necks." The corner of her lips twitch, as Eli smirks. "Don't take it personally, but your fingers are quite large compared to mine."

"That's because you have baby hands," he teases, lacing his fingers between his own. "So as long as we wear these, I promise to never abandon you."

"I promise I won't leave. I promise," she vows sincerely. Eli's face crinkles in happiness. There's something about having something to physically hold in his hands that he finds reassuring, something he can't explain. Similarly, it's easier to feel reassured by her existence when she was in his arms, rather than with facts and evidence. The doubt diminishes significantly, and his whole heart swells in hearing her say the words out loud.

"Tangible proof," he smiles blissfully, placing yet another kiss on her neck.

"I think this is a wonderful idea," she says dreamily, allowing him to shower her with more and more kisses. His lips are soft and moist, and they feel like Heaven on her skin. Likewise, it feels like Heaven to Eli, being able to kiss someone as incredible as Clare. "Anytime you find yourself doubting, look at my purity ring and know that-"

He stops to gaze at her, wanting to drink in everything she's about to say.

"And know that I'm here," she promises. "As long as you need me."

A kiss- a real one this time- seems like the perfect way to close off, and Eli doesn't dither in pressing his lips against hers. It feels like decades since their last one, far too long for his liking.

"So my stuff," Clare breaks off suddenly, leaving Eli in disappointed surprise. He hadn't nearly enough time to deepen the kiss, nor was his hands able to begin their exploration.

"We'll go back there together," he allows, unable to keep the discontent from his voice, "but on one condition."

"What's that?"

He looks seriously at her.

"That when we come home, we are going to have a decent, steamy make-out session with an adequate amount of touching."


	10. Suitcase

_**"Eli...I am **_**all **_** in."**_

**a****uiewjairrpoer.**

**that is all so enjoy**

* * *

Eli parks some couple blocks away, careful to make sure that his conspicuous vintage black hearse is hidden behind the thick shrubs planted around the corner house. As Clare hurries to climb out, she squints at her former house with nervousness surging through her veins- it was all like a game, she would continuously remind herself. The worst that can possibly happen if she was to be caught is nothing she's not used to. She bounces anxiously on her toes, zipping up Adam's jacket to her neck.

Eli just stands slightly behind her, smirking.

"What?" she asks.

"I like your panties, Clare," he smiles mischievously, striding right past her- but not before he gives her behind a gentle slap. Clare lets out a timid _ooh _and glances down. Sure enough, the sheerness of her nightgown is more prominent in broad daylight . Eli's eyes sparkle in amusement from watching her expression shift, as he is inwardly delighted to have brought the subject up again.

"I can't wait to change out of this," Clare grumbles, twisting him around and marching him forward.

"You know what? I kind of like you in that," he says devilishly, suddenly halting against her pushes. He grins impishly, quite satisfied with the amount of panting behind him. Clare shoves with all her might, but the downhill effect fails to work in her favour.

"Keep it in your pants, Eli," she says reproachfully. With a sigh, she seizes his wrist and changes tactics, choosing to tow him instead. Eli chuckles and lags behind, allowing himself to get dragged. The view is quite nice, and he didn't protest.

"So where are we heading after this? Those matching dragon tattoos you said you wanted are long overdue," he says, grinning at the vivid memory of her rebellious streak.

"I think we've been refractory enough today, don't you think?"

"Not nearly enough," he says, leaning towards her ear. "I thought you were all about living dangerously," he whispers, lips at the shell of her ear. He smirks crookedly at her pleasant shiver. He likes that he can evoke that kind of response out of her. He likes that he can make her shudder and blush, knowing that he has that kind of effect on her. Months ago, he would have been perfectly satisfied with that response- really, he had been thrilled about it. But now it's different, and the glorious extra weight in his pocket serves as a reminder of that.

Their exchange, though it signifies something completely innocent, would always mean something more to him. Every time he had seen her pretty purity ring sparkle and shine on her finger, he thought of two things: for one, it was symbol of the self-respect Clare held herself with. He admires that about her, and he loves that she prided herself in that manner. That's what separates Clare from the rest; her purity, her innocence. On the other hand, he viewed it as an obstacle of what his teenage boy-self wanted more than anything else. It certainly put a damper on his fantasies, knowing that for the next ten years, they would only remain fantasies. But he loves her so much, there wasn't any other option other than waiting and, to quote Clare herself, _keep it in his pants._

But oh, she had given him her purity ring, and nothing she could say would stop his mind from racing excitedly. He'd love nothing more than a reason to get her all hot and bothered, a reason to venture further than a passionate kiss. There's still so much they haven't explored yet, and he wishes with all his might that their exchange meant she was ready for more. He'd restrained himself for nearly half a year; more than that if he counted time prior to really getting into a relationship.

She turns around shortly to narrow her eyes, her lips pressed together in a smile.

Around the side, the window is fortunately open. It isn't very high up, but hoping from the nearest tree branch to the sill would require lots of momentum. From one brief glance, already Clare had gathered that she wouldn't be able to climb it even if she insisted upon it- her lack of athletic abilities and poor gym mark would stop her, if anything.

"Alright, so I guess I'll go up," Eli says confidently, releasing Clare's hand and rubbing his palms together before placing them firmly on the trunk.

"Be careful, please," Clare says, eyeing his legs apprehensively. She awkwardly puts out her hands in case he fumbles, eliciting an eye roll out of him. As if she would be able to catch him if he did.

Eli snorts, heaving himself upwards on the first branch. "Give me some credit, Clare. This isn't my first time climbing a tree. Don't you remember?"

"Yes, because the first time you climbed a tree, the branch snapped off and you fell face down. Give me a real reason why I shouldn't be worried."

Eli turns to glare playfully at her, his ego crackling before returning to his climb. His extremities feel particularly clumsy and heavy today, though he seems to be doing well in fooling Clare. He's dead nervous, still quite afraid of being caught. Even his own nonchalant attitude couldn't trick himself into believing that he's fully convinced this is a good idea. As he peers over the open window, he's almost expecting her parents to be there- hands on their hips, looking positively crossed, or perhaps with a wooden bat clutched in one of their hands. From there they would smack him down, and he would fall to his demise….

"Eli!" she shrieks, and she realizes that he had fully paused with one foot suspended in the air. He quickly attempts to regain equilibrium by stepping on a sturdy-looking branch, stomach slipping when his foot did.

"Ohh, I can't look," Clare whimpers from below, covering her eyes.

He's not that high above; perhaps ten feet, maybe less. But if he were to fall, it would certain leave quite a bruise on his face.

"It's okay," he coaxes, trying to calm her down before himself. His own heart is racing wildly, and he steadies himself by taking a few breaths.

Footsteps. He whips his head around so fast, he must have cricked his neck. Clare must have heard it too, because her eyes widen at the same time.

"Duck!" she hisses, rushing to the exterior of the house.

Eli peeks cautiously over. " It's alright," he confirms, panting a bit. "False alarm."

Bracing himself for a potential fumble, Eli takes a breath- then fully launches himself forward, straight into her bedroom with a soft thud. He hears Clare let out a relieved exhale from outside, and takes a moment to stick his head out the window and beam.

"Oh, shut up," she says, waving him away. As if he needed to puff up his ego any more.

He takes a quick scan across the room, deciding quickly that he would start. In the corner of her closet sits a duffel bag and a small suitcase; both of them, combined or not, would be inadequate for carrying all her belongings. Nevertheless, he pulls out the top drawer, dumping all the contents in the first bag. Sweaters and shirts occupy half the space, her jeans soon dominating the rest. With a low grunt, he heaves up the heavy duffel and sits it on the ledge.

"Toss it down," Clare says, feigning confidence. With one glance of her flimsy arms, half-heartedly outstretched before her, Eli bites his lip.

"It's heavy," he says, quickly imagining the bag crushing her onto the ground, followed by a sickening spat. "I think I'll have to make a few more trips.

The extra trouble of climbing back down ended up being quite necessary, as when he handed it to her, while it remained seated on the grass, she staggered under the weight.

"Just leave it here, okay?" She's so petite; it's a bit scary to imagine what would have happened if he actually threw it down.

Clare nods, and he proceeds to fill the suitcase. Once in her bedroom again, he puts most of her toiletries from her bathroom into the front pocket- feeling particularly awkward when he dropped a bunch of her feminine hygiene products in there lastly-. He adds the important stuff, like her favorite quilt, her diaries, some of her novels, the scrap paper that are actually messages they shared with one another long ago, as well as her bible. Her socks come next, and he hesitates before tugging open her lingerie drawer. Part of him insanely curious to see what treasures lie behind the wood, part of him wondering if Clare would be embarrassed. Then remembering that it was a necessity, a wide assortment of white and pink cotton is soon revealed, his eyes bulging involuntarily immediately after. Without even thinking about it, he reaches out and touches one of the padded items, sadness and glee sweeping pass him. Gleeful at the thought of touching something that had touched her in that area, but sad he may never. Then ridiculously jealous, for the bra touched constantly what he could not. It's becoming increasingly difficult to control his thoughts now.

Solemnly yanking the drawer out and pouring the contents in, Eli takes the room in once more. He seemed to have tackled all the important things, as so he thought before a photo caught his eyes. A small smile crosses his face, and he gingerly slides it in his jean pocket.

"I think I'm done now," he calls, swinging one leg over.

He stills himself upon seeing her petrified expression.

It all happens very quickly then. Randall's voice becomes dangerously louder, as if he's drawing near, Eli stumbles and lobs the entire suitcase down in an act of desperation, and a very loud crash spreads through what could be heard within a ten mile radius. Clare lets out a squeak, hastily shoving in all her belongings that flew out from the impact, leaving Eli to figure out how in hell's name he could climb down in less than five seconds. Randall's alarmed voice can be heard from the stairs, and Eli has less than a few heartbeats to escape. He jerks forward, praying that he wouldn't break legs jumping out the two-story window, but curses violently under his breath. Of course the most unlikely misfortune would happen to him. His belt loop is somehow tangled with the strings of the blind, probably as a result of his haste movements. Desperately he tugs and pulls, trying to free himself, but all to no avail. He's stuck, thanks to the goddamn blind strings.

"Fuck, fuck, fuckedy-fuck," he growls in a panic, yanking harder and harder. It only worsens the situation, as the knots only become tighter.

So he does the only thing he can think off.

All dignity aside, he swallows and unzips his pants. In record time, he manages to wriggle them off, and flings himself forward. By some miracle, his fingers close around a branch, and from there he safely struggles to climb down.

"Run!" he says hoarsely, picking up the suitcase and the duffel bag. The pair of them makes a bee-line for the hearse, ignoring the odd looks in Eli's direction. He roughly tosses the bags in the backseat, then hurries to the front and starts the engine.

"Go!" Clare cries, clinging onto the handle above her.

Morty bursts forward, driving farther and farther away.

"That was fun," he jokes weakly, eyes constantly darting from the rear-view mirror to the front.

They look at each other, and burst out in laughter. Ribs aching, happy noises filling the air, the whole situation appear less serious now that they are safe. Frightening and dead-risky it had been, adrenaline surges through their veins, and they feel completely exhilarated.

They laugh the whole ride home, frequently sharing ideas of how Randal would react upon seeing Clare's room half-empty. The worse is over, and they are equally relieved.

"Eli," Clare says in a somewhat vague tone as they step up the porch, "Where are your pants?"

He looks down at his boxer-clad bottom and then up at her face- absolutely priceless. She deliberately averts her gaze, pretending to be preoccupied by the doorbell with a faint pink colour pooling in her cheeks.

"Oh yeah, they uh, got stuck while I was trying to climb out of the window. Nasty blind strings, you had there," he explains, keeping his head down.

As he shoves his keys in the lock, the door is opened before he turns it.

Adam stands before them, squinting. "Where are my sunglasses?" he murmurs groggily, shuffling away without any greeting.

"It's cloudy today," Clare says confusedly turning around. "Why do you need them?"

"The paleness of your boyfriend's legs is burning my eyes," he mutters, jamming a pair on his face. He looks at Eli. "Ahh, still stings a bit. Where did you put my other ones, Cullen?"

Eli peels off his jacket, looking extremely offended as Clare dissolves into a fit of giggles.

"Come on, Edward, help me get my stuff upstairs," she says between tinkering laughter, pushing her things towards the stairs.

"Don't call me Edward, Edwards," he says huffily, snatching her bags away and stalking up in front of her. Clare stifles her giggle, following behind with more distance than usual.

"You can take the guest room, if you like," he says, setting everything down. "I thought you might like having your own bathroom."

"Thanks," she smiles briefly. "I'll start unpacking now, and leave you free to put on some pants."

"My favorite pair of pants," he groans. "Gone."

"I wonder what they'll think when they see a pair of skinny jeans hanging limp by the window," she muses, half grave, half amused.

"They might think it's yours," he says hopefully.

"Even I don't wear jeans that tight, Dr. Doom. " She holds up a pair of cotton leggings, folding it neatly. "Now shoo, I haven't got any sunglasses in here for you to stick around."

Eli scowls. "If I could see your legs, you wouldn't be making fun of mine."

"It's the dead of winter," she says lightly. "Unless you plan on holding it out for a few more months."

"There are probably other parts that are paler that you don't reveal to the public-"

"Eli-"

"Like your _chair area-_"

"Out-"

"Or maybe your frontal-"

"_Get out."_


	11. Dare or Chicken

**Long wait- I'm sorry! I haven't really been around the computer lately, so I apologize greatly!**

**Now that Eli an Clare are living together, it must be paradise. **

**Perfection****.**

**Right?**

**:)**

* * *

By the end of the week, Clare's new bedroom was completed- the effort put into the hours worth of labour, of forbidding either of the two boys to take a peek, was worthwhile. Neither of them could believe their eyes.

"Where am I?" Adam says loudly, gaping at the beautifully painted walls and the elegant new armchair and matching ottoman. Every square inch is a pretty, pastel yellow color, and the ratty old curtains are replaced with silky ivory ones. The bedspread is made of fresh linen, and the tidiness overall is just unbelievable.

"It smells so good," Eli moans, sniffing the air. "Why doesn't our room smell like this?"

Clare shrugs, beaming. "It's lavender. And depends- are you averse to air freshener?"

Aversion isn't exactly the problem- it's negation really. Lack of initiative, tied with straight-up laziness.

"So this is why we haven't seen your face for so long," Adam nods in approval, still gawking around. "Great job, Clare."

Eli throws his arms around her shoulder, looking wonderstruck. "I'm taking you out for breakfast. Amazing as this all is, I think you need some fresh air."

"Nothing like some icy cold winter air to give me frostbites, huh?" Clare grins, quite pleased with herself.

Eli smiles and leans in, burying his nose in her curly mass of morning hair. The tip of his nose feels cold to the touch, as the chilly morning had their skin much colder than usual. Even with the heater on full blast, and bulky robes wound around their body, the air inside the house remains thick and arctic-like. Clare jams her freezing hands into her pocket, clenching them into fists.

"What's the temperature like outside, anyways?"she asks, a shudder rippling down her spine.

"Minus seventeen from what I heard," he murmurs, brushing his lips against her head.

"Bring on the sweaters and corduroy pants," Clare sighs. She presses her hand on his chest, and then glances down at his slippers. They're little black bunnies, one of the ears anew and one of the whiskers pulled off. "I think I have a furry hat to go with your bunnies."

"The bunny team," Adam snorts, giggling under his breath.

"The _sexy _bunny team," Eli clarifies, dismissing him with a lazy wave of his hand. "Meaning you're not on it."

"There's bacon in the freezer, anyway," he says snobbishly, thrusting his nose up in the air and exiting dramatically.

There's a pause, and the couple turn to each other with a smirk on their faces. As soon as Clare says "I hate bacon", the words "you hate bacon" come out of Eli's mouth. She grins sheepishly; he triumphantly.

"Why don't we get changed now," he suggests, finally unwinding his arms around her. "I'll meet you outside?"

"Sounds like a plan."

He smiles again, quietly shutting the door behind him. He knows everything about her, of course; he knows what she doesn't like, what she does, what she's afraid of, what she can't stand. Like the back of his hand, he knows how Clare adores fluffy white snow. How the dark freaks her out, how she likes being protected, but despises being suffocated. He could list her favourite colours in the order of preferences, and he can confidently say that autumn mornings and summer evenings are her favourite. He knows all the little things about her. He knows the big things. He _knows _her.

-x—

The Dot is busier than usual, especially considering it's only ten in the morning. The snow is falling hard, and traffic is pretty bad. It takes them twice the time to drive there, twice the time to find a seat, and even longer for their order to come.

Clare delicately sips her hot cocoa, her cheeks rosy and her button nose Rudolph-red.

"Mhmm," she hums blissfully, tangling her legs with his beneath the table. "Do you want to try some?"

And so he drinks, eyes never leaving her face. He tastes the sweetness, immediately hating it and wanting to gag, but pressing his lips together to prevent hurting her feelings. The way her bright blue eyes light up when he represses retching, it's precious and he wants to take it all in. It matters little that his tongue is burning from the sugariness, it can all be taken away by the bitterness of coffee gliding down his throat. _She's _absolutely precious, and it's worth it.

"You hate it," she accuses with a lighthearted laugh, enclosing the mug with both her mitten hands. "I know you, you know."

Matching blueberry bagels arrive, slathered generously with strawberry jam. Ripping the bagel in half, he asks, "Do you?"

Clare chews slowly, looking intrigued. "Your favourite band is Arcade Fire. You hate blue jeans and lurid colours, you think they're annoying. You're a light sleeper, but when you want to sleep, you just don't- don't wake up."

Eli raises an eyebrow. "Go on."

"You've been to four Dead Hand concerts. You love brownies and bunnies and bubbles and- "

"I do not like bubbles," he says, sounding offended.

Clare raises an eyebrow.

"I don't," he says defensively.

She makes a pop sound with her lips.

"Stop it," he pouts, unable to keep the grin from forming on his face.

"Fine, fine," she allows, feeding him her bagel. "But let's play a game, okay? Something to distract from this awful weather."

"What kind of game do you have in mind?" He pokes out his tongue, furrowing his eyebrows as he expertly licks off the jam at the corner of his mouth. Clare watches with bizarre interest- he's extraordinarily skilled with his tongue. "Oh, I got one- _dare or chicken_."

"Rules?" she asks.

"It's simple," he begins, face lighting up at the prospect of playing. Clare feels a bit of uneasiness in her stomach, knowing that if Eli enjoyed such a game, it probably isn't anywhere as tame as she'd like it to be. "We dare each other to do things, and if we chicken out…let's say, every time you chicken out, you have to clean my room."

"Like a redeemable pass?" she asks uneasily, immediately picturing Eli's pig den. "Everything time I chicken out, equals how many time I have to clean your room on command?"

He nods, looking pleased with himself.

"And if you chicken out-"

"-not gonna happen," he says in a sing-song voice.

"-then you have to go shopping with me!" she exclaims excitedly, clasping her hands together in glee.

His wallet immediately begins to ache in his back pocket.

"Sounds fair," he says, downing the rest of his beverage. "You go first."

She taps her chin playfully, pretending to think really hard. A quick scan is done around the room, and then-_eureka. _There's a gaggle of teenage girls, perhaps all middle-schoolers, occupying the large table in the center of the restaurant. They giggle loudly and obnoxiously, delicately sipping their drinks with an air of inferiority. All flipping their hair over their shoulders, constantly looking over their shoulders to see if anyone was watching.

"Your best pick-up line on that girl over there," Clare says, subtly pointing at a particularly haughty girl of the bunch. "Go!"

Eli cranes his neck around, making a face. "Pick the bubblegum pink, puffy-haired girl, now will you?"

"Don't chicken out so early in the game," she says angelically, propping her elbows up on the table. She rests her chin on her hands, watching him with amusement.

He rolls his eyes. "Please, just let the master at work."

As Eli jams his hands in his pocket, turning on his suaveness, Clare perks up. He looks so…_hot, _for the lack of a better word, when he does that, and she can't help but feel smitten by him. The way his shoulders are hunched over ever so slightly, and how his dark hair is windblown and untended to, is making her swoon like a school girl on the inside.

He saunters over to them, and simultaneously, all five of them turn their heads to look at him. Simultaneously, they take him in, looking quite approving of his appearance.

"Pardon me, miss," he says charmingly, looking at the blonde girl with a smouldering gaze. She looks completely awestruck before regaining her composure, jaws dropping to the floor and eyes bugging out in disbelief. Clare stifles a laugh by biting her lip, hard. "But I seem to have lost my number. May I borrow yours?"

_Classic._ She giggles in a high pitched tone, and Clare could almost feel Eli's cringe. The girl appears overly delighted at the amount of positive attention directed towards her, and basks in the envy-eyes her friends are giving her. With another supercilious hair flip, she batters her eyelashes and smiles sweetly at him.

"What's your name?" she asks silkily, making novice flirty-eyes.

"Eli Goldsworthy," he says in a low, attractive voice. He flashes her a dazzling smile, and Clare's chin suddenly slips off her hand. Her stomach lurches forward, and she blinks. She'd been so preoccupied, so engrossed by him, watching him flirt with her. How utterly…sexy her boyfriend is, and how she failed to notice all this time! Obviously, she was attracted to him, and had been since day one, but their relationship had always been based on trust, communication and mutual understanding of the other's need. Had it really taken her half a year to realize the alluringness before Eli's wit and tenderness? How could she have missed it?

"Well, Eli," she croons, "I'm flattered, but I'm afraid I can't be your girlfriend."

_Girlfriend? _Well, that's stretched out quite a bit.

"Shame," he says, feigning sadness. They probably couldn't tell, but Clare knows him, and she can detect the hint of smugness trickling through his voice. "Well, I guess I-"

"Sit with us!" one girl insists, roughly pulling him down on an empty chair. Clare's hands fly to her mouth, covering up a loud snort of laughter. A few patrons nearby shoot her a glare, but she doesn't notice.

"So your name is Eli, right?" another one asks coquettishly, leaning towards him. All suaveness vanished, Eli looks absolutely horrified by the proximity. The girls seem to be cramming into his personal bubble, and all so abruptly that he didn't have enough time to figure out how to react.

"Bethany already has a boyfriend," she says, twirling her hair. "But _I'm _available."

"You- how old are you again?" Eli asks, giving the bubblegum girl an odd look.

"Thirteen," she answers.

"I'm fourteen!" the girl next to him says loudly.

"Well, that's very nice and all," he says brusquely, getting up slowly, and brushing himself off, "but I have to get going."

"But you just got here," a girl whines.

"Yes, and we have so much to talk about," another adds with a pout.

Eli looks over at Clare, mouthing _help me._

She shakes her head, grinning widely.

"That's great, but I really have to get back to my _girlfriend,_" he says loudly, shooting Clare a pointed look. The girls immediately whip their head around to give her a dirty look. As their attention is diverted towards her, Eli hastens to slip away.

"Eight graders flirting with you, huh?" Clare smirks, as he settles down across from her. "And giving me nasty looks. Should I feel threatened?"

"That was hell," he says casually, ruffling his hair and trying to appear unruffled. Clare's smirk only grows, seeing the past-panic etched onto his composure. "And if anything, you should feel threatened by me."

"I'm trembling," she grins.

"You should be," he says seriously, returning the grin. "I have to give you props for that dare, though."

"Props accepted," she says, satisfied.

"Okay, Edwards, I dare you to…" He wracks his brain for something challenging, yet completely legal for Clare to do. Something that would make her stretch far beyond her comfort zone, something that he would entertain him just as much. Past the gaggle of preteens, past the few Degrassi students huddled together, past the parents, past the children he looks, unable to find anything that would spark an idea.

Nothing.

He frowns. He wants something special…just for Clare.

"Hey Peter," he calls, waving the waiter over. Clare wrinkles her eyebrows together.

"What can I get you?" Peter asks, flipping open his notebook. "Can we get a cup of black coffee, and a packet of ketchup?"

He gives Eli an odd look, but nods just the same. "Coming right up."

"I hope it's for you," she says warily, eyeing him with sudden nervousness. "You know I hate ketchup. And black coffee."

He smiles innocently. "Do you, now?"

"You're cruel." Clare has a low tolerance for foods she dislikes. She can't not gag when something horrid is forced down her throat, and she's had particularly bad experiences with food in general. Her mom had been so strict with her meals, it was just awful. How many times she had to spit food into her napkin to stop from vomiting it all out is incredible.

"Ah, here we are," he says pleasantly, taking the warm mug with opening hands.

"I can't drink that," she says plainly, watching him squeeze ketchup into the steaming cup with critical eyes.

"You're going to chicken out?" he asks, raising a daring eyebrow.

"Only if you don't mind me blowing chunks," she cringes, swallowing some disgusting -tasting saliva down her throat. "Eli, that's repugnant."

"That's why it's fun," he says brightly tossing the empty package to the side. He pushes it towards her. "I dare you to drink all of this."

"Eli," she says quietly, eyeing the contents distastefully. The redolent of ketchup invades her nostrils, and wrinkling her nose does little to stop her from retching. She doesn't want to give in so easily, nor does she want to disappoint him either, but the thought of even going near such a horrible smell causes a nauseating rolling sensation in her stomach. She feels sick, and she wants to plug her nose. It's coming, the vomit. It's getting closer, it's coming.

"You look green," he notes, smiling melting off his face. "Are you al-"

"Take it away," she swallows, feeling the sour taste creep up her throat. "Eli, take it away!"

Alarmed by her sickish appearance, he hurries to depose of the contents by rushing outside and pouring it into the snow. As soon as the stench leaves the restaurant, Clare can finally breathe, and lets out an exhale of relief. She smiles weakly at the sight of him dumping it right next to a proper-looking old lady, watching her nostrils flare up with exasperation. She seems very offended by Eli's actions, as her tummy had been from the smell.

"Better?" he breathlessly asks, looking hopeful as he re-enters. His cheeks are already ruddy from the cold weather, but all he seems to be focused on is her.

"A bit," she admits, concentrating on anything other than the memory of the scent. She shudders, prompting him to place a gentle hand on her arm.

"I'm sorry," he says guiltily, caressing her soft skin. "Do you want me to take you home? I could find a nice, warm Snuggie for you and you can lie on my bed and we can watch movies instead?"

"Let's not go to your room," she flinches. "We're probably going to leave a mess, and I don't want more to clean up."

"Don't be ridiculous, you're not cleaning up my room," he says simply, coming around to her side. He rummages through her pile of knit clothing and finds her beanie, and gingerly places it on top of her pretty curls. He takes the time to move each strand so that they frame her pale face nicely, cutely touching her nose before proceeding to wrap her scarf around her.

"But the dare-"

"We can go shopping tomorrow, if you like," he says lightly, adjusting her woolly scarf. "I`m so sorry for making you feel nauseated, Clare. It was stupid, really."

"So what, you're trying to atone by taking me shopping?" she inquires, not at all opposed to the idea, but honestly curious.

He helps her put on her winter coat, gently zipping her up. "It was so stupid, making you sick like that. I was an idiot."  
"Hey," she says, frowning. She touches his chin. "You're overreacting here."

"I just don't want you to be anything less than of perfect health," he says tenderly, kissing her forehead. "It'd worry me."

"That's sweet, but I think I'm fine now," Clare says, as he quickly throws on his own jacket.

"You want to leave a poor old Snuggie alone at home?" he queries playfully, winking at her as he places a crisp bill on the table.

"You say it like it's a crime," she teases, letting him take her hand.

"Someone hasn't been reading the rulebook," he jokes, squeezing her fingers. "Come on, let's get out of here."

_So Eli just cares. A lot. It's a good thing. A really good thing._

His grip tightens around her, and he smiles warmly at her.


	12. Infer and Break

**I know I know, I haven't uploaded in three weeks! I'm super-whooper sorry for the looooooooong hiatus, guys. ):**

**I'm probably going to be uploading more now that we have a tortuous two months of waiting ahead of us, but I'll admit that I'm quite content with that ending last night. Eli's "I love you" made me die. I'm dead. I'm dead but I'm a alive but I'm dead.**

**Thank you for those who were so patient with this story, and I promise I'll try to do better!**

* * *

"_Love was a dream on planet Earth, that fell through the seams, on planet Earth," _Clare sings softly, clutching Eli's phone in her hands.

Traffic is exceptionally bad, and the snow is becoming increasingly difficult to drive through. It's coming down harder and harder, and the windshield wipers are on constantly. Eli Goldsworthy has one hand on the steering wheel, and the other on Clare's heart. The way he's humming along to her slightly-off pitch singing with a slight crooked smile on his face is precious, and she loves it. The boy loves her quirkiness, her dorikiness.

"I was fine, though. We didn't have to rush home; especially not in this kind of weather," Clare keeps saying, feeling rather guilty for cutting their breakfast short. Her and her stupid intolerance.

"I don't think your face is supposed to look that green, so no," Eli counters, feeling equally guilty for coming up with such a revolting idea in the first place. Revolting not in a general sense, but more in Clare's sense. He knew she hated coffee and ketchup, so why did he have to cross the line? Him and his stupid ideas.

"You're overreacting. I'm a big girl," Clare shakes her head.

Eli disagrees, but presses his lips together and says nothing.

"Can we bake muffins at home?" she asks suddenly, turning up the heat. The warm air blasts onto her face, and she screws up her face before turning it back down. Eli chuckles lowly, stifling guffaws.

"I don't think we have any flour at home- but we can go run to the store really quick to pick up some," he adds quickly, seeing her face drops. Clare smiles happily at him, and then resumes scrolling down Eli's playlist. He has the strangest variety of artists, ranging from indie rock bands to screamo- the angsty music is usually reserved for _those _days, but they're in his playlist nonetheless. His playlist has a cute little story to go along with it, actually, and it was when Eli had first developed a crush on her. He programmed a handful of cheery Taylor Swift and Kelly Clarkson songs to impress her, thinking that was fond of those types of music. After teasing him mercilessly for 'liking' such artists while admitting that she preferred rock bands over them any day, Eli swore to never put himself through that kind of embarrassment again- and that meant not pretending to gain her approval.

"Yay!" she says cutely.

"I didn't know you could bake though," he continues conversationally. "That'd make you borderline perfect, and I wouldn't be able to compare."

"I can't," she says cheerily. "I'm probably going to burn down the house."

He looks uneasily at her, wondering if she's kidding.

"We can make a detour here," Clare adds, jerking her head towards her left. "There's a Price Choppers five minutes away."

"Yes master," Eli nods. "Can I kiss you, by the way?"

Clare looks taken aback, but amused just the same. "That came out of nowhere."

"I know. I just like kissing you," he giggles, leaning over to place a sloppy kiss on her cheek. She playfully cringes and shrinks back, vigorously rubbing the spot his lips touched.

"Stop," she complains, smacking him away. "You're driving!"

"I'm not going to crash Morty," he rolls his eyes, retreating reluctantly. "I happen to be a very skilled driver."

"Not with your eyes, you're not," she counters sternly, turning her back on him. Eli lets out a huffy breath, and tightens his grip on the wheel. He keeps his gaze ahead. "You're more irresistible when you're not throwing yourself at me, anyways," Clare says, softening up upon seeing his disappointment.

"Not now, Clare, I'm driving," he says seriously, cracking a smile. A smile on the outside, when truly Clare's rejection troubles him in more ways than one. His knuckles whiten as his grip tightens even more, as he tries to repress the fretting and panic rising within him. He didn't want to be overly-suffocating with his affections for her, but the way she easily turned him down was a tiny bit alarming. He knows that if the roles were reversed, he would cave, no questions asked. He doesn't like to think that he is fonder of her than she is, and he may be over-analyzing in the same way he did in the beginning but rejection is rejection and it didn't feel good regardless. In fact, he's starting to feel a little stupid for throwing himself at her in the first place.

"Maybe you could lend me a hand later," she offers kindly, as he averts his gaze.

"I don't need your pity, Clare," he says rather shortly. "I know you're perfectly well on your own."

"Are you sure?" She looks a bit uncomfortable, and shifts around in her seat.  
"Yeah."

Clare looks at him for a long time, debating whether to say what is really on her mind. She didn't like Eli's tone, nor is she fond of the way he was being a tad bit demanding-demanding, she thinks, for a lack of a better word. The way he ushered her out of the restaurant so quickly had been a bit much, though understandable. It is Eli, after all, and she knows he just wants to look out for her. But the guilt trip he's putting her through just for denying his affections, keeping in mind what's most prudent and cautious, lingers in the air like a bad odor. She had to bring it up, even if it is just a small matter. Lack of communication had always let them down. It was always the origin of their fights.

"Eli, what's on your mind? I feel like you're mad at me," she asks steadily, stitching her brows together.

"Nothing's wrong, Clare," he answers brusquely.

"Stop it, Eli. Why are you being so short with me all of a sudden?"

"Nothing, Clare," he says in the same, brisk voice.

Exasperation bubbles up inside of her, and she folds her arms across her chest. "Please don't tell me you're upset because I wouldn't let you kiss me. You're driving, for Heaven's sake!"

"You're being ridiculous, Clare. I'm not going to get mad over something so stupid," he scoffs, refusing to meet her eyes. "I'm just…mad that there's so much traffic, and I really need to go pee."

_A dime excuse_, Clare thinks bitterly.

"So what's on the agenda for tonight?" Eli asks, changing the subject.

"I don't know. Maybe we could watch a movie?"

"Maybe one of the chick flicks you like so much?" Eli smirks, lightening up a little.

"Oh shush, you like Leonardo DiCaprio, and you know it."

"Hmm," Eli says fondly, reaching over to take her hand. Clare, with an uneasy feeling that things haven't completely blown over yet, withdraws from him without thinking much of it. It was an impulsive movement. One she didn't intentionally do to make matters worse.

Eli, however, takes it the wrong way completely.

"Once I can understand, but twice?" he says, sounding both wounded and frustrated. "If you want some space, I can take a hint."

"You're taking things too seriously," Clare blurts in desperate irritation. Eli's eye flash, and with a gulping realization, she knows he's taken it the wrong way again. She wracks her brain upon seeing his expression for what other possible ideas he could be getting, hastily searching and searching before halting.

Crap.

"Eli, I didn't mean it like that…" she adds quietly.

"Then how exactly did you mean it?" he asks, voice dangerously low and calm.

"I…I-"

"If you want to break-up, just say so," he says resentfully. "Nobody's stopping you. If you think I'm being too serious, by all means, go ahead."

"Eli-"

"If I'm suffocating you too much, just let me know. I don't want to be a burden to you, Clare."

"That's not what I meant!" she cries, yanking off her seatbelt and twisting herself around to face him. "You're taking words right out of my mouth."

"More efficient than waiting around for you to say them, anyway," Eli mutters acidly.

"Why do you think I want to break up with you? Where is all this insecurity coming from?" Clare demands, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him vigorously. He allows himself to be shaken, and just sits limp like a ragdoll with his hands firmly gripping the steering wheel.

"I've barely seen you for a week while you were working on your room, and now that we finally have time together, you want space," he says through gritted teeth.

"So, what? You feel like we're falling apart?" Clare says in disbelief. "We've never been closer than we are now! Things were way worst before and you know it!"

"How can I know anything?" He says, raising his voice. His eyes are like daggers as they flicker back and forth from the road ahead to Clare. "The steaks have never been higher before!"

Inference, inference, inference. All Clare could do is try to infer what Eli is truly feeling, and to her astonishment, it's not that off par from what she had been feeling all along. It's like they're on the same page, but on completely different sides of the universe. Eli is doubting her love for him, and it's both offensive and infuriating because he is so hell-bent on believing the worst. He's scared, just like how she's scared. But unlike her, he's coping in an angry, skeptical manner that isn't at all healthy.

It's probably safe to say that lack of communication is really screwing them over now.

"I'm not going anywhere, I promise," Clare whispers, reading his mind. "You have to understand, though, that living together, we're not going to be in an epic honeymoon phase forever. You _know _that-"

"I don't know what I know!" Eli shouts at her, slamming down on the brakes. He looks at her with anguished, angry eyes. He's frightened deep down, she can see it. He's also frustrated and confused, but Clare can't process that fully at the moment. Because at the moment, a loud, honking noise emanates from behind them, causing the, to turn around in unison. A huge truck is moving full speed towards them, and the slippery ice beneath does nothing to help.

"Eli!" Clare screams.

The last thing they can remember before they black out is the other's frantic eyes. A sickening crunching sound is heard through Eli's ears, and he knows instantly that it came from beside him. A rush of coldness hits him harder than the impact. He feels cold.


	13. Waiting Game

**I know, I'm terrible. Assuming more frequent uploads, and then uploading 956395 years later. I owe up to it.**

**So from here, things are going to get a little bit interesting. A little bit conniving in the next chapter or so.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

When Eli's eyes flutter open, he almost wishes that they hadn't. There's a faint beeping in the background, and he quickly realizes that he's hooked onto some sort of hospital machine- the ones you see in movies after some dramatic accident occurs. The weird thing is, his memory isn't all fuzzy like he had expected it to be. On the contrary, he remembers everything perfectly.

And for whatever reason, just shortly after the impact, he was conscious again and was able to open his eyes- just for a little while. He remembers seeing the pool of blood and jagged pieces of glass surround him. The glass was sharp, scratching and cutting him in every part of his body. Several places were severely gouged and scraped, but he was too disoriented to feel it hurting him. He remembers feeling oddly stiff, like he couldn't move. His seatbelt was still strapped across his chest, and it dug into him like a sheet of glass being pushed into cement. He was sure there would be an imprint left on his skin.

Then he saw Clare.

If he could make a sound with his throat, he would have let out a horrifying scream. He thinks that's when he fell back into darkness- the shock and fear of seeing Clare in that horrific state was too traumatic.

He could not see her pretty cinnamon curls, because her entire head had been drenched in fiery-red blood. His mind immediately flashed to _Invisible Monster, _and if that wasn't enough, she was still. She was slumped forward in a crooked position, completely out of her seat. Her seatbelt was not on. Her head must have crashed through the glass. Everything came onto him at once.

Alone in the hospital room, Eli Goldsworthy starts to cry.

He doesn't want to remember this. Even if this is one hell of a nightmare, he wants it eradicated from his mind.

He spends the next while trying to convince himself that all of this is too surreal to be real. He must be hallucinating.

"Clare?" he croaks. His voice is scratchy like a broken record, and it hurts to talk. He feels parched, like he hadn't drunk anything in ages.

"You're awake!" A nurse says in relief, bustling in with slightly winded look to her face. "How are you feeling, Mr. Goldsworthy?"

"Clare," he says again hoarsely, wanting to rub the tears away, but unable to. His extremities feel heavy like stone, and he feels beyond exhausted. He welcomes sleep. He welcomes rest. Only, he can't let himself rest without knowing one thing.

Eli endeavours to speak louder, more clearly, but if he attempts more words he's sure his tongue would crackle and dry out like a prune altogether.

The nurse wrinkles her brows together. "I'm sorry?"

"Clare," he repeats, a little more impatiently this time. When the nurse's confused expression doesn't waver, his frustration becomes visible on his face. _I just want to see Clare, damn it. _"Edwards."

"Oh, Clare Edwards," she says slowly, talking to him as if he's a five year old. "What exactly is your relation to her, anyway?"

_My best friend? My lover? My flipping everything?_

"My girlfriend," he says roughly.

"Oh, that's nice," she says pensively. "How long have you two been together?"

She's stalling, it's so obvious. "Where's Clare?" he demands, irritated.

"Why don't you drink up?" she suggests, handing her the glass. "I'm sure everything is quite muddled and confusing-"

"No, I-"

"It's cool, it'll soothe your throat," the nurse continues to push, helping him sit up and thrusting the glass at him. "You need to-"

"Fucking hell, where's Clare?" he growls, and in his immense frustration, his water goes tumbling down onto the throat indeed sears as if inhaling white-hot flaming oxygen, but he refuses to give her the satisfaction. The nurse gulps, glancing from the spilled water to Eli with a slightly fearful look on her face.

"Mr. Goldsworthy, please relax-" she implores, reaching out to adjust his pillow.

"Tell me what you know!" he shouts at her, not caring that his throat is blazing, or that his tongue may shrivel up any second. He roughly shoves her hands away, struggling against her, resisting.

"Please don't yell!" she begs.

"I just- I need to know!" he cries out in anguish, a rippling sob crackling down his spine. He inhales raggedly, as if tormented by his own ignorance.

A gentle knock sounds from the door, and it swings open shortly after.

"Elijah Goldsworthy?" another nurse asks, looking from her clipboard to him.

"What?" he says harshly, glaring at her through his agonizing tears. With much effort, he lifts up his left arm just enough to rub his eyes.

"There's someone here to see you," she says stepping backwards to reveal Adam. "The doctor will be in very soon to run a couple of tests."

"Do you mind?" he addresses the other nurse coldly.

She shakes her head, looking guilty, and leaves the room without a single word.

"Dude, what happened?" Adam asks at once, looking helpless. He appears dishevelled and frazzled, more messy than usual if possible. "I-what happened?"

"It was my fault," he croaks at once, burying his face in his palms. The walls come down in front of Adam. Eli doesn't care that he's ugly crying in front of him, no. He feels overwhelmed and guilty and distressed and everything bad that a person can possibly feel. "I hit the brakes and I was being stupid and we were disagreeing about something I shouldn't care for and it's all my fault-"

"Stop," Adam says, putting his hands out and wincing. "And slow down. How did it start? All I know was that you guys were out for breakfast when- when _this _happened."

"Noo," Eli moans. "I was so stupid, damn it!"

"I'm sorry," Adam says quietly, wishing he could be of some help. He squeeze's Eli's shoulder, letting go almost immediately when he flinched in pain.

"Have you seen Clare?" Eli asks desperately. "I need to apologize to her."

Adam shakes his head sorrowfully. "They're not letting any visitors in the intensive care unit."

"She's there?" he chokes, turning pale. What little blood left on the face quickly drains, leaving him whiter than a sheet of paper. Unable to console, unable to be of any help to his best friend, Adam scrunches his shoulders together in hopes of making himself smaller, somehow less significant. He guiltily watches Eli's lower lips quiver, yearning to comfort, wanting to reduce some of the pain.

"She…she wasn't wearing her seatbelt, was she?" Adam asks in a tiny voice, hating himself for having to ask.

"No," Eli whimpers. "Oh, God no."

He was already so far in, he might as well rip the bandage off right then and there.

"And I probably should mention… her parents are here," he says, wringing his wrists.

Eli looks as if he might hyperventilate and pass out.

"They're waiting outside her room," Adam informs regretfully, as uncomfortable as a person can be. "I past by them while walking here, and I think her mom recognized me. She was too shell-shocked to say anything, though. She and Clare's dad were just sitting there, blank-faced and not shedding a single tear- you'd think it some distant cousin in there instead of their only daughter by the looks of their- what do you think you're doing?!"

Eli, despite being attached to a machine by the means of a dozen tubes, begins to heave his sorry body off the bed. Every little movement made seems to have hurt him deeply, as he cringes and grits his teeth- as only a solider would, forcing himself to endure abysmal pain. To a certain degree, Eli's a fighter. He'll fight for what he wants. But more than that, he's a lover and he'll fight for who he loves.

And fuck, it really is a fight. Through his heavy bandages, he can still feel the tender stinging of his open wounds. He thinks of the time he thought it was a fucking fantastic idea to make lemonade with Clare after a deep paper cut. That pain, multiplied by at least ten. His knees wobble, and Adam hastens to hook his hands under his armpits before he collapses on the hospital floor.

"What the actual hell, man!?" Adam grunts, struggling to lift him back on the bed.

"I need to see Clare," he says stubbornly, pushing against him. The sorrow is replaced by blazing determination. For the umpteenth time, he scrubs his eyes raw, stopping the tears from rolling down his face. They're blood-shot, but determined nonetheless.

"Please, choose another time to be crazy," Adam begs, shoving him as gingerly as possible. "You're living off a machine right now, Eli. You're walking on insanely thin ice."

"I have to make sure she's okay," Eli says, not listening to a single word he was saying. "It's my responsibility to make sure she's okay."

"You're not a doctor, you can't do anything-"

"You don't understand," Eli presses obstinately. "I have to-"

"You don't have to do anything but lie sit your ass down and rest," Adam says sternly. The desperate, helpful edge of his voice lingers. "Please. There's nothing else you can do."

"But she's going to be okay, right?" Eli asks expectantly. When Adam doesn't immediately answers, he narrows his eyes. "_Right?"_

"Stay here, I'll go get you something to eat," he says, averting his gaze.

"Fuck, Adam, tell me the truth!" Eli growls, grasping his wrist before he could leave.

There's a long, drawled-out silence. Eli stares intensely at Adam, while Adam stares helplessly at the ground.

"I don't know," he whispers, shaking away Eli's grip. "Let me get you something to eat."

Utterly defeated, overwhelmed, and broken beyond comprehension, he plops back down on his bed. Face-down against his pillow, he lets out a roar of sheer anger, frustration, and hollowness.

He has no choice but to play the waiting game.

-x—

The amount of time that has lapsed from when he first awoke: inestimable.

The amount of patience he had to exercise to get this far without completely losing sanity: immeasurable.

The amount of frustration felt when people refused to update him on Clare's status: beyond anything he's ever felt.

Eli has done it all. He has thrown tantrums, broken down into tears at random, rejected mealtimes- you name it. Having to remain in the same bed from dawn to dusk was probably the worst part of it all, and when he was finally allowed to wheel himself to the cafeteria, he began the lovely process of finding hiding spots of where nurses wouldn't be able to find him. He hated being cooped up in his hospital room with passion, and for a while, snickering under his breath while the staff searched high and low for him served as its own source of entertainment.

After growing tired of outsmarting forty-year olds in scrubs, he embarked on a slightly more dangerous task. He decided it was high time to find Clare himself. He'd heard enough of the staff discussing her critical condition in hushed tones. He had done enough waiting. He was rapidly healing, and would be near perfect condition again soon. He had done what he was obligated to do.

So after he sent Adam to fetch him his favourite comics at home, he hobbled over across the hall with his cane. Perched atop the wooden stick was a skull; a piece of Morty that a kind police officer had given him after checking out the scene of the crash. Though sadden by the death of own of his very best friends, Eli took it in stride, and soldiered on. He was grateful that nothing worse had happened, and shouldn't dwell too much on what he could have done better.

Now limping down the narrow hall with the wall as extra support, Eli glances around to see if any nurses are nearby.

Empty.

Biting down on his lip, he looks around for room 206 (eavesdropping had never done him so much good before).

"Aha," he mumbles in triumph, hobbling down the hall with his eyes fixated on the very room that occupies his girlfriend. All his waiting would be rewarded shortly…

Four steps away from the cool slickness of the knob, realization suddenly dawns on him. Eli freezes like a deer in headlights, the memory of the last time he saw Clare crashing down on him like hail. Flashes of the blood, of the shattered glass attacks his mind, sucking all the moistness out of his mouth. Images of how hurt she looked when he accused her of wanting space pounds on his skull, flooding him with a wave of fresh guilt and regret. Maybe there was a reason why he hadn't seen her in nearly two weeks- maybe she had already woken but had chosen not to see him. Maybe she was still upset.

Thirteen days of reflection had him realize how stupid he behaved. Thirteen days without him is enough to drive him against the wall. He needs to apologize, and he needs to do it _now._

Mentally bracing himself for the worst, Eli twists the shiny golden knob with slightly shaky hands. Seeing Clare in a hospital room is almost as nerve-wracking as seeing her in English class, prior to when they first started dated. He doesn't know what to expect.

And what he sees is the good kind of unexpected….and the bad kind.

The good news is that he isn't as badly-bandaged up and wounded as he feared she would be. There are several cuts and scrapes across her face and arms, and probably more where he could not immediately see, but most are brown and healing well. Her curls, to his immense relief, are just as they were before- springy, cinnamon-brown, and not a drop of blood marring its soft colour. Her eyes are also opened.

That's part of the bad news.

_So she chose not to ask for me, _he thinks sadly.

The sadness, however could not keep him from limping closer to the bed where she lay. It's been too long, and so he insatiably drinks her in. Her creamy ivory skin is as luminous as ever, though there are ever-present bags under her eyes. Her usual healthy flush of color is missing, and her eyes are slightly faded from exhaustion, but overall she looks well.

"Hey," he says softly, unable to keep the longing from his voice. He misses her so much, he can't help it.

She glances up, cocking her head to the side. Neither startled nor upset, happy nor angry at his presence, she looks at him with a serene type of kindness that weakens Eli's knees.

"Hi there," she whispers gently, gaze traveling over his cane. "Hopefully soon, I'll be able to move around like you."

"You'll get there soon," Eli reassures softly, smiling sadly at his wistfulness. He warmly peruses her face, no longer seeing the scars or slashes. He sees his Clare, his lovely, compassionate girlfriend whose presence he had been unfortunately deprived of. He sees the gentle dreaminess of her demeanor, the patience, and the undying humility in her. He misses every bit of it.

"Are you looking for anyone in particular?" she asks gingerly, sitting up a bit.

Eli looks at her with confused amusement. "I was looking for you, silly. Who else do you think I'd want to see when I haven't heard your voice in nearly two weeks?"

It's Clare's turn to look confused.

"What are you talking about?" she asks, knitting her brows together.

"What are _you _talking about?"

"You act like we've spoken before," Clare frowns.

"But we…I don't understand what you're getting at, Clare," he shakes his head slowly, never tearing his gaze away from her.

"How do you know my name?" she inquires warily, clutching her blanket tightly, and pulling it up to her chin.

"What?" Eli says helplessly, now panic-stricken. His palms are clammy against his cane, his fingers slick with sweat and sliding off little by little. "I'm not a stranger-"

"I don't know who you are!" she cries, alarmed by Eli's unconscious advances.

"Sir!" a nurses says, rushing into the room. "Please do not distress the patient! I'll have no choice but to ask you to leave."

"No, she's my girlfriend," Eli says weakly, beseeching Clare with his eyes. She recoils, and to his terror, she displays no signs of recognition.

"I don't know him!" Clare says to the nurse, eyes widening in fear.

"Sir, please step out of the room-"

"Clare, you know who I am! I'm your-your boyfriend- stop pushing!" He cries, struggling against the nurse. His weak leg serves as a disadvantage, and he gets towed away easily.

"Please calm down sir!" the nurse says loudly, reaching out to close the door behind them. "The patient-"

"CLARE!" he yells desperately, not able to comprehend any of this. He can't process what's happening. Why is Clare pretending she doesn't know him? Why is she treating him like a stranger? This isn't some cheesy chick flick. This isn't The Vow. Obviously, there's a reason why she didn't want to talk to him, a reason different to what he's thinking.

He casts one more pleading look in her direction.

She just shakes her head, looking both apologetic and frightened.

* * *

**So next chapter: you'll probably going to hate Helen. Even more if you already do. Cheers to bad parenting!**


	14. Lying Game

**I don't know if she'll see this or not, but_ JuneMeddleton182404, _you are the best thing that can happen to a writer! I tried to pm you earlier, but it seemed that you've blocked that in your settings. I suppose this is the only way I can communicate to you. I just really, really, really want to give you a biggish hug for the incredible messages/reviews you've left for _Journal_! Reading what you wrote has really softened a hard day, I appreciate it so so much! Thank you so much for putting in the time and effort into writing to me. :))**

**And without further ado, I present to you the fourteenth chapter of** _**Cold**_**!**_  
_

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"Hi, honey, how are you feeling?" Helen kindly asks her daughter, ruffling her hair. "Are the headaches getting better?"

"Not really," Clare informs quietly, holding her head in a futile attempt to stop the pounding. She squeezes her eyes shut, concentrating on diminishing the throbbing pain. She feels as if there's tiny construction worker trapped inside her skull, trying to drill his way out. A heavy construction worker, at that, with a fifty tonne drill on hand.

"Do you want me to bring you some soup?" her mom offers.

Clare smiles weakly. "Yes, please."

"I'll just run down to the plaza down the street. Be back in a bit," she promises, kissing her cheek before grabbing her coat and exiting.

She's sixteen, and like her mom had said, she shouldn't be dealing with any of this. Due to the nature of the accident, she's been dealing with major headache and migraines for the past few weeks. Her eyelids are constantly threatening to droop, and she feels perpetually tired. Worst yet, the details of how it all came about are still fuzzy, just as the details of her life are. It's like trying to find reception on a TV, in the midst of a horrid snowstorm; all you see is grey fuzz. She's glad, at the very least, to have incredibly supportive parents who love her so much. They've been extremely patient with walking her through her childhood, staying up with her to the wee hours of the morning discussing important past occurrences. She learned that she was on her way home in a taxi during a blizzard when a truck crashed into her. She discovered that she was also very well-loved by a boy named Jake Martin, who would be visiting her again later in the day. She had seen pictures of them together in her father's wallet, and though she doesn't quite remember him, he appears to be exactly how her mother described him- tall, handsome, good-humoured, and strong. He was also very caring and considerate, according to Helen, and had come to see her multiple times before she had wakened. "I wouldn't be surprised if you two got married someday," her mother had said with a smile. "He's good for you, Clare-bear," her father had added. They both seemed quite fond of him, and so she assumed that he really was all these great things. Quickly she became anxious to see him, anxious to see all these good character traits of him.

When she asked them why she did not attend school, they told her that she was home-schooled. _That would explain my lack of friends, _she thinks wondrously. Considering, not many people had came to visit her. There was this boy with brown hair and blue eyes who had stopped by earlier, who claimed to be one of her best friends. Helen and Randall hadn't been around at that point to confirm, so she just went along with it. His name was Adam, and he was very funny and witty. She liked having him around.

There had also been that boy with the skull cane, He had dark features and slightly frantic edge to him, and he scared her a bit. He claimed he was her boyfriend, but Jake was her boyfriend, was he not? All of this was becoming increasingly complicated.

"Where did your mom go, Ms. Edwards?" the same red-headed nurse from before asks her, taking her blood pressure. The same nurse who shooed away the scary dark guy.

"She's getting me soup," she answers. "My dad's at work."

"It's a cold day today, isn't it?" the nurse says conversationally, pumping the little ball pump. The wrap suffocates Clare's arm, and it's an odd feeling indeed. "Soup would be ideal."

Clare nods and hums a familiar tune. At least, it sounds familiar. She's not sure what the song is called or who sings it, but she knows the tune very well. She hums and hums, then looks around the room. It's mostly empty, and it's enough encouragement to muster up a bit of courage. She wants to ask her something.

"Nurse, you know that boy who came to visit me earlier? What was his name?"

"I believe it's Elijah- Elijah Goldsworthy. He occupies the room down the hall," she says, finally ripping off the wrap.

Elijah- like the prophet? Was this boy religious like her?

"Knock knock," a voice calls from the door. Clare leans to the side, around the nurse to peer over at her visitor.

"Hello," she greets shyly, watching the boy set a beautiful bouquet of flowers on her bedside table. The wide assortment of colours and scents instantly livens up the hospital room, and Clare reaches out to touch one of the petals. It's waxy and real, and feels damp on her cool skin. "You must be Jake."

"That I am. How are you, Clare? You look good," he compliments, his weight dipping the mattress down towards him. Jake runs a hand through his rain-darken hair, smiling at her with a wicked twinkle in his eye.

"Thank you. And thank you for the flowers, they're pretty," she inhales deeply, enjoying the pleasant aroma.

"Pretty flowers for the pretty girl," he murmurs, leaning forward to kiss her cheek.

"How long have we been together?" Clare asks abruptly, feeling stupid for not knowing. She twiddles her thumbs together, knowing that it is an important question to ask, but still feeling dumb altogether.

"A few months," he answers smoothly. "Our parents are pretty friendly."

"So everyone approves?"

Jake presses his lips together to stifle a smirk. It should bother him that he's blatantly lying to the girl he's supposed to be in love with, but on the contrary, he's delighted. With that Eli guy completely erased from her mind, the odds are on his side. No shits given on the fact that he most likely looks like the villain in this scenario.

Now, he's not sure if he truly loves Clare the way Eli claims to. He's not sure of what love is supposed to feel like. And it'd probably be a lot easier from the beginning if he had just let them be, but for some reason, something is keeping him grounded in the Edwards residence. There's no doubt in his mind that he harbours some feelings for Clare- how strong, how conditional, he doesn't know. There are a lot of things he doesn't know of, and that's merely ignorance within himself masked by a suave exterior and the tendency to talk only when he needed to.

"Everyone approves," he nods.

And so the lying game begins.

-x—

Eli Goldsworthy was discharged nineteen days after the accident. The limp in his leg would take much longer to fully heal, and he's still sore in many areas of his body. But he's generally healthy, and all the doctors had confirmed the full restoration of his health should happen in a few more weeks. He feels physically fine, for the most part.

Emotionally, he feels beaten and bruised and screwed over by fate.

"Did she remember you?" he asks Adam resentfully upon seeing him.

"No, but we chatted. She seems the same, for the most part," Adam replies, trying to throw in as much optimism as he could.

The make matters even worse, Eli would have to endure through an entire bus ride home with all his stuff- yes, the _bus._ The nasty yellow sucker would have to play substitute until he gets his hands on another car. The day really can't get any worse than from taking the bus- fares are outrageously expensive in comparison to the last time he went a bus ride. Riding with all the passengers also serve as a cruel reminder of what privilege he no longer had. Morty was squashed to a pulp, along with all his favourite CDs and comic books stored inside.

"Are you ready to go?" Adam asks uncertainly, watching Eli fixate upon the narrow hall. When he wasn't bitter or angry, the poor boy had resorted to desperately hoping that Clare would somehow remember again, and come running out the door into his arms. "Or do you want to say goodbye to Cl…"

"No," he mutters acerbically. "It's not like she'll remember me."

Adam doesn't press the matter, and so they walk to the bus stop in tense silence.

Around the edges, Eli is angry. He's livid at the world, at himself, at the idiotic truck driver, etc, for letting this happen. It was one mistake. One little mistake that sent his entire world crumbling down into ashes around his feet. One impulsive decision, one little argument that ruined everything. He's furious at the weather for making traffic so awful, because had it been decent they would have been out of the car before such a dispute could erupt. The freaking snow made it impossible to go anymore, and he's mad at that. He's pissed at the damn truck driver for not slamming down on the brakes fast enough to prevent the crash. But most of all, he despises himself for slamming down on the brakes too fast. When it really got down to it, he knows he's to blame, and he hates it. He hates himself.

But down into the core, where all his deepest emotions emanates from, Eli is fucking bleeding. It fucking kills him that the girl he would die for doesn't recognize him. He clearly remembers her face, how terrified she had been of him; her eyes had been wide with fright. She saw him as some freaky stalker, not the guy she was in love with. The love is gone. _Though in her mind, there had never been any love in the first place._

He grips the pole with both hands, and presses his forehead against the cold mental.

_She doesn't remember you._

There's a clawing sensation in his heart, viciously scraping at him, letting him bleed to the death. Something is squeezing him, suffocating him, letting him dry and wither and gray. There're only flashes in his mind; Clare screaming, the crash, the distance between them stretching out as he's being dragged away.

He lets out a roar of pain, banging the pole with his bare fists. Some part of his mind warns him that his knuckles would bleed, given the force he was exerting, but the hell with it. There'll probably be a small dent on the metal after he's done.

"Eli!" Adam cries. He tries to hold him down, but all to no avail. "Eli, stop!"

"Fuck!" he shouts, roughly shaking him off. He elbows Adam firmly in the ribs, causing the poor younger boy to let go and cringe, and continues to thrash about. A stream of anguish profanities escapes Eli with absolutely no self-control involved. Hot, angry tears are slipping down his enraged face, coating his ruddy cheeks, and melting into the snow.

Helpless once again, Adam just stands in the back and clutches his stomach. _Some fucking friend I am, _he thinks, tormented by his best friend's pain. He'd always been able to handle a broken Eli, as he frequented this state more times than he can remember. He and Clare had always been rocky- bordering unmanageable, but nothing time and immeasurable effort can't fix.

But after the accident…the relationship that had been set precariously on the tip of a cliff had finally been pushed off the edge. He has _never _seen Eli in so much pain before, not when they first broke up, not when the cops had caught up with them in the carnival. At the tender age of seventeen, Eli had already found the most difficult love to exist- the forbidden kind. The unconventional kind. The kind every force in the world seems to be trying to break. And instead of proceeding with caution, he took off running with it. He loves with a love so unconditional, so irrevocable, nothing could ever tarnish the raw purity of it. Perhaps it didn't matter much that someone disapproved of their relationship; he still loved Clare with a burning passion ignited with a flame that could not be put out by the means of trivial opinions. Their time together had been limited- so be it. He did not think of it as major set-back, nor did he ever consider the idea that he would better enjoy a relationship with someone he could spend more time with. That just made him value the time he had with her more.

It just hurt because he thought he had it all, and suddenly it was so cruelly taken away from him.

He lashes out and screams and pounds until he could do it no longer, until all his energy and stamina has been drained. Panting heavily, he collapses into an exhausted heap on the ground.

"I can't do this Adam," he sniffs, shivering from both the cold and the intensity of his tantrum. He breathes raggedly, shallowly, and the puffs of smoke coming from his mouth look just as ragged and shallow. Oh God, he's a mess.

A moment of silence drifts between him, Adam nervously wracking his brain for something to say.

"I-"

"I have to go see her," Eli hoarsely cuts through him, as if he had said nothing at all. He hurriedly scrambles to his feet without hesitation, walking full-speed towards the hospital. Rub, rub, rub the tears streaming down his face, and ignore the awful constricted feeling of his throat. His bum leg slows him down, making it harder to walk.

Eli and his erratic mood changes are enough to give anyone whiplash. Adam, being the fucking friend he is, follows right behind him in case something happens- and knowing Eli, there is always an endless list of things that can go wrong.

"What are you going to say?" he huffs, struggling to keep up with his long strides.

"I have no idea," Eli answers honestly, his face displaying not a single etch of humour. "But I do usually thrive in extemporaneous speeches, so I'm counting on that."

"So in other words, you're just going to wing it," he says bluntly.

"In so many words." He smiles bleakly.

His mind is in a completely blur. The sound of the hospital staff chattering about in hushed tones don't quite reach his eardrums, as he's so focused on walking without falling apart. With every staggered limp, his knees threaten to buckle, just daring him to take another step forward. And another. And another.

And when he reaches the room, he balks.

"Damn, crap I can't do this!" Panic creeps up his spine. He yanks his hand away from the doorknob, and begins to pace back and forth at an alarmingly quick speed.

_Dear God, this guy, _Adam thinks desperately, up to ends with his constant mind changing.

"Yes you can!" he encourages, switching tactics. Enough with just going along with it, he's talking charge. He seizes his shoulder to stop him from moving. "You're Eli Fucking Goldsworthy, for fucking sake!"

"Yeah, well, this little fucker is nothing to her anymore," he spits out, staring at his feet. Then in smaller, more fearful voice, he asks "What if she won't listen to me? What if she just thinks I'm psycho?"

"You _are _psycho," Adam says firmly. "But you're still you. And somewhere deep inside, Clare is still the same Clare who chose to run away with you."

"So?" he says pessimistically.

"_So,_ find that Clare. Go!"

Shoving him with all his might, the door bursts open. Eli staggers in, his cane falling down beside him just as he tumbles down. Sprawled, crumpled on the cold floor, he clutches his leg and lets out a gasp of pain, willing the shooting, excruciating discomfort to go away. Because damn it Adam, that hurt a lot.

Then he looks up.


	15. Little Finger & Sweet Smiles

**This'll probably be the last upload before school starts, and I'm depressed. So long to the days squandered accomplishing absolutely nothing; I welcome long school hours with reluctant arms.  
**

**I probably should edit this...****but I won't because**

**no**

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After Jake leaves that evening, promising to see her again the next day, Clare takes the liberty to strip out of her worn hospital gown and into the fresh one the nurse had left her. She needs to regain her strength again somehow, someday, so why not start now? She didn't see the point of squandering money on a physiotherapist who'd only teach her how to do what she already knew. Besides: less time cooped up in a bland hospital room would always be a plus. She has already grown tired of lying around all day, and having the same people ask her the same questions. Yes, she slept well the previous night. No, she's not hungry. Yes, her body still felt lethargic and dull. It's been ages since she's had fresh air, or even changed herself. And after insisting that she was perfectly capable of dressing herself now that her wounds had half-healed, the red-headed nurse had given her at least ten minutes of privacy- just enough time to sneak out for a few gulpfuls of clean air. The smell of medicated soap is practically suffocating her.

Peeling her gown off is the easy part. All she had to do is let the fabric drop from her body. Picking up the clean one and slipping it on is another story. It isn't long before Clare finds herself panting from exertion, as she endeavours to stand on her own two feet. Her legs feel wobbly and weak. Despite the long night of rest, her arms feel as if they've exhausted themselves. Nothing seems to be working the way she wants them to, and it's frustrating.

Sometime, maybe five minutes later, she finally manages to pull her head through the head hole. With her luck, something just _had _to get tangled up in her uncombed hair, and so she just stands there with a flimsy blue hospital dress in her face. Stark naked, standing in the middle of the room. Of course something like this would happen to Clare.

Beet red and struggling indefinitely, it seems as if things couldn't get worse.

Until…

"Damn you, Adam," someone hisses, bursting through the door. Shell-shocked and frozen with shock, Clare peers through the semi-transparent fabric.

A figure. On the ground. In her room.

In a panic, she yanks down the gown with as much strength she could muster- which admittedly, isn't very much. Desperate the cover, desperate to save what dignity she has left, she forgets to scream.

"Clare, I….ooh."

Her face burns with enough heat to melt the Arctic, and her frantic movements just causes her more discomfort. She wants to yell at the guy for barging in, for remaining in the room for so long, but she can't. She's too focused on covering herself, too humiliated to want to make a big deal out of it.

_Oh God,_ she moans inside her head. Inside her head, she's thrashing helplessly. _Why me?_

She expects him to leave; it's the least he can do, after all. But he doesn't, and this alarms her. Why is he approaching her? What is he planning to do with her?

Her mind on red-alert, every inch of her is still and vigilant. His hands are raised and-

Suddenly, her gown is gingerly pulled down to drape her body. A pair of deep, unfathomable eyes is on her. They're gazing at her eyes, searching, not ogling her body. Every now and then they'll travel down to her hands, but only shortly. She can see his Adam's apple bobbing nervously in his throat, but that's all that he gives away. He's passive otherwise.

Clare recognizes him at once. It's the guys from before, that's who.

"I know you," she whispers impulsively, staring intently into him.

The context is all wrong. Her words aren't directly correlated to her initial thoughts, because up close, she really sees him. When she says 'I know you', she means from before, prior to the accident. Prior to her memory lost. His chiselled features, the color of his eyes and hair, his lips- they're all too familiar. Forget the fact that he had seen her birthday suit, forget that. How familiar he looks…it's unsettling.

His expression melts from one of discomfort, awkwardness, and surprise into something quieter, softer. "What do you know of me?" he asks quietly. There's an air of beseeching in his tone, and Clare can see him trying hard to keep it neutral. His eyes continue to search her, remaining as calm as- wait, she sees it! There was a flicker of agony, of pain and loss. Just for a brief moment, he let his walls down, and Clare didn't miss a single heartbeat of it. Her palms begin to sweat, realizing that she had really seen all of his in his eyes. How peculiar…and frightening.

Clare swallows deeply. The Goldsworthy boy is staring at her with so much intensity, it's as if he knows something.

"Never mind that, you're n-not supposed to be here," she says uncertainly, taking several cautious steps backwards. Should she be afraid? Flattered? "You should leave."

His gaze doesn't waver, only flickering briefly. Again there was the deep-seated emotion that makes Clare feel a tingle somewhere in her stomach.

"Please…please tell me," he whispers through a constricted throat. It's like he's begging but he's not, because he's struggling to keep it together. He doesn't want to risk frightening her more, but he's desperate and anguished and he has to try. "You say you know me. Do you…?"

"Umm." She hesitates, torn. Embarrassment and anger is flushed away by the longing in his voice. He looks like he's in so much pain and she doesn't have the heart anymore to throw him out. Even if he had rudely barged in.

She's looking down to his skull cane, to the leg that seems to be jutting out in an awkward angle, to the wide black cuff around his wrist, and to his neck. Her gaze halts at his neck, because there's something small and shiny and delicate hanging on a thin silver chain.

Eli notices her looking at the ring, and slips his necklace off wordlessly. The small stone shimmers, even under the harsh hospital lights.

"Try it in," he says breathlessly, holding the thin band out. He doesn't touch her again without her consent.

"Why?" she asks, taking a few more steps back. She looks at the ring like it might jump out and attack.

"On your left ring finger. It'll fit perfectly," he says pragmatically.

"You're insane," she says at once, slowly shaking her head. "You can't-"

"If it fits, you'll know that I'm not lying. If it doesn't, I'll leave you alone."

Clare's eyes widen slightly, instilled with fear. What is playing at, getting her to try on a ring she's never seen before?

The odds are in her favour, though; Clare's fingers are smaller, thinner than most. Her mother told her that store-bought rings would never fit her.

"Fine," she says determinedly, clenching her hands to stop the trembling. "Then you'll leave me alone?"

He shrugs. "If it doesn't fit."

Swallowing again, she nods, lifting up her hand. They quiver just the same. _Relax, Clare. _All she has to do is one simple task, and then the scary boy will leave her alone for good. So maybe he had ignited a flame of curiosity within her from the very first time she saw him. Maybe he did make her feel uneasy about everything and anything. And maybe somewhere in the corner of her mind, she kind of, sort of, wanted to know him a little more. _It's hard not to when someone demands their presence upon you like that,_ she rationalizes. She had to admit- there was a part of her that feared the ring would fit. And at the same time, she was kind of excited at the possibility. Maybe he would have more to tell her, if he really was her boyfriend.

Boyfriend.

Could she really have been in love with someone she doesn't know? The whole thing is so confusing.

Gnawing down on her lower lip, she slides her cold little finger through the silver ring. Her hand brushes the Goldsworthy boy's hands in the process, and he feels cool. They don't feel clammy with sweat like hers. _How embarrassing._

The ring refuses to budge past her knuckle.

"It doesn't fit!" Her voice sounds so awfully odd, a strange blend of relief and disappointment.

"Wrong finger," he says patiently.

_Oh._

She slides her ring finger in this time.

"It…"

"It's perfect," he says, the tiniest hint of a smile lighting up on his otherwise bleak face. And God, how genuinely happy he looks in saying these words. It's as if a piece of heavy weight chipped off of his shoulder, revealing a sliver of soft golden hope.

Clare stares at the ring wordlessly.

"Now do you believe me?" he asks, peering at her hopefully. All he wants is a chance, a tiny chance.

"This…this doesn't prove anything," she says uncertainly. Though by the look on her face, Eli knows she's nearly sold.

"I know you, Clare," he says softly, trying not to make it sound creepy. "Test me. Go on, ask me anything about you."

_This is bizarre_, she thinks, but obliges. What has she got to lose? Surely she had always been with Jake…her mother had told her herself. But how this boy- Elliot? Elisha?- claimed to have been in the picture too didn't really add up. Helen had never mentioned any past boyfriends, and especially not one who had conveniently resided in the same hospital at the same time as her. Someone is lying.

"Can I get your name first?" she asks shyly, fiddling with the ring on her finger.

Eli smiles ruefully. "It's Eli."

_When Eli smiles crookedly like that, it's kind of handsome. _He had a dark, brooding thing going on with his eyes and hair, and it attracts Clare in more ways than one.

"And I'm sure you know what my name is."

"Clare Diane Edwards," he says beautifully, smiling at his feet.

"That's right." She wracks her brain for a difficult question that only a boyfriend would know, but comes up short. She barely remembers anything of herself, and frowns.

"I know that you're ticklish," he offers gently. "You're afraid of the dark, and you can't stomach food you don't like."

"I…I don't know if any of that is true," she says quietly.

"The first one is easy to fix." He reaches out, and softly traces his finger down from her chin to her collarbone. His feather-light touch makes Clare scrunch her shoulders and shrink away, but at the same time, they feel kind of magical. Kind of golden and electrifying. "Your knee too."

As soon as he begins to caress her knee, she jerks away. The usual giggle is absent, and it doesn't slip past him. He attempts another soft smile, this time one of triumph. Instead, a sad look casts over his face like a shadow, and he feels rather discouraged. The reaction is not exactly the way it used to be, and he misses it. He misses her giggle.

"Okay," she says hesitantly, gripping the hem of her gown, she wraps the fabric around her wrist, over and over again. "That bit about the dark…how do we test that part out?"

One look at the face, and she can see the wheels turning in his head. She isn't surprised; Eli did seem like the scheming type. It's not a great shock to her that ingenuity is probably one of his strong suits.

"I have an idea," he says thinly, bringing a finger to his lip. "But it's going to require a bit of risk-taking on your part."

"I'm listening."

Biting down on his nail, he strides over to the window with as much agility as crippled boy could deliver. With a quick snapping sound, the blind are raised, revealing a grey display of cluttered cars along a busy intersection. Clare squints at the sudden downpour of sunlight shining down on her, as well as the bright white snow glaring back at her.

"See that tiny bit of forest over there?" He points at the green, not far from sight. "We'll go there."

Clare quirks an eyebrow.

"At midnight," he adds, looking expectantly at her.

Oh God, she knows where this is going, and the mere thought petrifies her. This little plan Eli devised goes against practically every rule her parents set out on day one: Don't talk to strangers. Don't get involved with boys. Don't be out at night by yourself. Stay in the hospital room at all times. She's now certain that there isn't half-assing going around here, because this can go either way. Either Eli was lying straight-up to her face, or her parents had. It had to be one of the two, and it couldn't be both. Seeing how these are the only two sides she knows of, she's suddenly faced with a choice.

Of course, it'd be the most rational to go with what your parents say. As a general rule, parents are usually more trustworthy than a teenage boy- especially one of which painted his nails black. Then why, she has to ask herself, is she so very curious about this boy? Why does she have a feeling that he had been somehow heavily involved in her life, prior to the accident? Why did all of this have to happen in the first place? Damn it, her head hurt and all she wants is to remember again. She hates that it has to be so complicated.

"No," she says worriedly."Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be out in the woods? It would worry my parents to no end."

"Since when did you….never mind," he says hastily, looking away. A bitter, thoughtful kind of expression passes his brittle face. "God, this is worse than I thought," he adds in a mutter, leaning against with the wall wearily.

"What are you talking about?" she asks, a little more desperately than she intended.

"Nothing," he says quickly, striding past her and back to his original spot. He bits his thumbnail again, in his mind scraping up another solution. "The hallway lights are going to be on all night, and so are the ones in the rooms-but not the basement. They'll be turned off at midnight, so that could work. Only, I don't have a reason to stay anymore so I'll have to find a way to sneak in…"

She listens to his rambling with keen interest, still guilty, still so curious, and still so troubled. She's so tempted to go along with the experiment, and it's beginning to really stress her out. It could be easy if she wanted it to be. She could just say no and kick him out. Then she could be on her merry way to recovery, with the wonderful physiotherapist her mother would hire for the next few months…

"I'll do it," she says decidedly.

"You'll-really?" The sheer hopefulness in his voice…priceless.

"I know where the basement is, so I guess I'll see you there about five minutes after twelve," she continues, trying to carry on with her confident tone. She's doing it. She's all in. She has to. She needs to know the truth.

"That's great," Eli says, his cheeks lifting up into a sweet, sweet smile. In his face holds all the hope in the world, and that's just it. There's nothing but hope emanating from him, not a trick of the light, not a hint of deceit. He looks like a kid whose been promised Christmas everyday of the year, and it's precious.

All he wants is a chance, and she's going to give it to him.

"I'll be going then, I guess. Bye Clare," he says softly, giving her a half-wave. She just nods as he limps over to the door, pressing her lips together in a thin line.

Just as he's about to turn the corner and leave, he twists his neck around to look at her one last time. Another sweet smile appears on his face, and she thinks that he's about to say something sappy and loving and promising. She braces herself in preparation for that, knowing that the same kind of promise can't be reciprocated from her. It's not fair to her, and it's certainly not fair to him.

"Clare?"

"Yeah?"

His lips twist into an impish grin.

"I saw you naked."


	16. Flustered

**So I'm afraid I have an important announcement to make- but before get into that, I want to again apologize for the ridiculously long wait. I'm kind of at the point where I wonder if you guys have given up this story, before I have to assure you, that I haven't. I promise you that I will finish it, I will. School has just started again recently as many of you know, so it's getting quite busy having to juggle homework and such. I'm barely on the desktop anymore, and with the hiatus, inspiration is a little difficult to channel. I'm focusing on other projects at the moment outside of fanficiton and school work, so forgive me if I don't update as often for now on.**

**Secondly now, I'm terribly sorry if you have been followed "Breakeven". This is me officially announcing that it will be discontinued, for the reason that it began as a way to vent out my sad Eclare feelings. Now that the Imogeli storm is over, I don't really have much business with it anymore, so I'm really sorry for that. **

**Lastly now, if you have any requests for one-shots, please let me know! I know I haven't written one in a while, but if you have any crazy ideas I'd be glad to put it down.**

**Enough with my rambling now. Please enjoy the next chapter of "Cold"!**

* * *

At night begins to fall, Clare's worries only escalate. Lying in bed, spending the next few hours wondering whether she regretted her impulsive, reckless decision or not is slowly driving her to the state of insanity. She's frustrated, restless, and damn it, her head is releasing steam from all the over-thinking she's doing. In any situation, there's always one side that she'd leaned towards more than the other- one side that's slightly more appealing, a side that she secretly prefers more.

In this situation, she's sitting solely on the fence.

And as hard as she tries to remember any part of her life before, she always comes up short. It feels like she's trying to remember something that never happened, and God, it's frustrating! She has no information to fall back on, no past feelings whatsoever. It's like she's trapped in a blank piece of paper, surrounded by nothing but whiteness.

"Nurse," she calls in a strained voice, shaking her little bell. There's nothing that she wants more than company, as the constant solitariness is aggravating her more and more as the day drags on. Clare needs someone who wouldn't be biased to talk to, and desperately resorts to seeking a hospital staff in hopes that she would gladly weigh in her opinion.

When no one answers, she shakes the bell a little harder, moving her arms as well. "Nurse!" She lets out an impatient exhale, now banging her instrument against her bed with more force than necessary. Clare is not in the mood for waiting. "NURSE!"

Tick-tock.

"NURSE!" she shrieks, whipping the bell across the room. It hits the floor with a loud thud, and at the same time, her arm pops out anew. "Oh!"

The pitter-patter of footsteps draws near, and the door opens. "Ms. Edwards are you alright?" the redhead asks in distress, eyeing the thrown bell. She then sees Clare, and the left arm jutting out in an awkward angle makes it easy to detect what's happening. "Oh dear, you've dislocated your shoulder!"

And before Clare could say anything, an enormous pain courses through her in a flash. Clare screeches, unable to concentrate on anything but the white-hot, excruciating pain searing through her shoulder region. There are blurry red spots all around the room as she blinks, and her vision is half-muddled by the unbearable pain that seemed to have come out of nowhere. "_What are you doing?_!" she demands in a scream.

"There! How do you feel now?" the nurse asks, releasing her arm. The pain disappears at once, and Clare is left with beads of sweat rolling down her temples.

"Just peachy," she gasps, momentarily bewildered by how horrifying and quick the pain had been.

"Please refrain from throwing things again, Ms. Edwards, you are still in the healing process," she says, hurrying over to pick up the cracked golden bell.

"I called you, and you didn't come." Clare says stubbornly.

"I apologize; I'd been busy assisting another patient in the room across. Would you like some juice, Ms. Edwards?"

"Please."

As the nurse tips the jug of juice in silence, Clare watches her with a slightly critical eye. _She's part of the staff,_ Clare suddenly remembers, _and she is in some sense obligated to listen to me. _It is her job to monitor her well-being, and in addition to her physical well-being is her mental wellness. Surely it couldn't hurt to try.

"Can I ask you something?" she asks, wrapping her cool little fingers around the plastic cup. She pauses to take a sip, feeling rather queasy from the feeling of cold liquid entering her empty stomach, but not letting her discomfort show. She's absolutely famished from missing dinner, but she doesn't feel like eating. Her anxieties are eating away any desire to put food in her mouth, and she fears that if she does eat, she'll throw up. "If you woke up one day and could remember next to nothing, you would do anything to find out who you were, wouldn't you?"

"The red-headed nurse smiles sagely. "I suppose I would. Curiosity is bound to drive you up a wall sometime."

"But what if people are telling you two completely different things? How would you go about finding the truth?" she presses, instantly dropping the nonchalant, theoretical air to her voice.

"Well, then I guess solid evidence would be your best bet."

Solid evidence. She'd have to keep that in mind.  
"Thanks, I'll bear that in mind," she says quietly, smiling appreciatively at her.

-x—

He's beginning to wonder if she'll show up at all.

It's been excruciatingly long forty seven seconds of waiting, and palms are getting all sweaty with fear. It's their first date all over again, with the pounding heart, the jittery tummy, and the…well, sweating. He distinctively remembers sweating through a couple shirts before actually going on the date.

Every time a patient passes by , his bowl of hope overflows into a pathetic puddle beneath him. And every time he realizes it isn't her, he slouches further down behind the trolley of toilet paper. He knows he probably should be more discreet, given that he shouldn't even be here. He doesn't want to risk getting caught and being thrown out, and with that throwing away what might be his only shot and getting Clare to remember him again.

"Eli?" she whispers uncertainly, gazing at him as she walks.

Eli looks up, eyes widening. "You came."

She moves closer, and she stops close enough that Eli can see the thin ring around her eyes. Her hair looks washed and soft, and he wants nothing more than to hold a delicate little curl in his hand. "I want to know, Eli."

He smiles sadly, overcome by temptation. He reaches and brushes her cheek, letting his fingers linger, and savouring the warmness. Delight in the midst of darkness surges through him when she doesn't pull away, and he takes it. He'll take what he can get.

"I want you to know too," he says softly.

"Can I ask you questions?" she inquires wishfully, eyes fixated on the doorknob he's beginning to screw open. "I have so many."

The door creaks open, and Clare immediately grits her teeth together. There's nothing but blackness ahead, even with the hallway light shining in the room. The furnace makes a horrible sound. She shivers, and she's not even inside yet.

"Are you afraid?" Eli asks, clenching his fists at his sides. He can't help it. He wants so badly for hold her, it's killing him.

"I…let's go." She creeps in, light on the balls of her feet. The room colder, and Eli catches her hunching her shoulders together. At once, he begins to regret every asking her in the first place, and contemplates telling her that she doesn't have to do this. It's cruel, almost as cruel as when he forced her into downing that ridiculous concoction at The Dot. But as memories of holding her hand, and caressing her face come into play, his throat tightens and his fingers released the knob. With a soft click, they are in almost completely darkness.

"Eli!" she cries. And even though they're not even a metre apart, she throws herself at him and clutches his torso frantically. Her hands are suddenly grasping at him, gripping him from underneath his shirt, the other wound around his neck. It all happens so suddenly he doesn't have time to adjust, and so he staggers back a bit.

"Clare, what's wrong?" he asks in alarm, taken aback. He grunts at her struggles, as she burrows herself at him. Her hands are moving all over the place, gripping him, pushing him to her soft body. He can feel her breath in his ear, causing the hair on his arms to rise. He doesn't know how it's possible, but Clare Edwards had somehow managed to make him feel so worried but so utterly aroused at the same time. Her hands, damn it, and her lips at the shell of his ear. The front of her is kneading against his, and while to her they are movements of desperation and fear, it's turning him on. "I-ooh…"

"You're right, I'm scared," she whimpers. "Open the door, please, open the door!"

"I- you have to let go Clare," he says soothingly, putting no effort into untangling the two of them. Mostly because in some, selfish part of him, he doesn't want her to let go. He wants her to continue touching him like this. He wants her to need him like this, just like how she used to.

"Eli, please," she begs, holding him tighter. "I'm scared!"

Oh, but he's in Heaven. There are electric currents rushing through his body, and deep yearning rumbling in the pits of his stomach. The desire that never went away.

"You can hold me, but I need my arms free, okay?" he whispers tenderly. She nods vigorously sliding her arms so that they're wrapped around him.

Together, they shuffle towards the door, Eli fumbling to find the knob. He finds it at last. With one last look at Clare, he twists it open.

"_Goooooo_!" Clare cries, driving him forward. The pair are propelled ahead, landing in a heap next to the trolley. The toilet paper rains down on them from the impact, knocking down on them with weight that could no way be just like paper. In this state of healing, Eli's going to bruise like a peach. He expects to wake up with at least five hundred new purple spots tomorrow morning. _Yay_, he thinks sadly.

"Ow…are you okay?" he asks, rubbing his head.

She opens her squeezed-shut eyes, looking as if she had endured the most horrible experience in her life. And for a long second, all they do is stare at least with polar-opposite expression- Clare horrified, Eli sheepishly guilty and anxious. At first, ignoring their position, Eli looks closer in her eyes. The blueness, the perfect roundness of them- he misses it so much, They're perfect in every way possible, better than he remembered.

As soon as they begin to recover, the way they are sprawled becomes more evident. Eli is on his bum, legs outstretched and one hand on the small of Clare's back. Clare is straddling Eli, clutching onto him for dear life.

"_Why did you make me do that_?" Clare shrieks, pushing him away. She hastily gets onto her feet, glaring accusingly at him.

"What?" Eli says, now helplessly rubbing his injured shoulders.

"I was scared and- and I clung onto you and I felt something-"Clare buries her face in her hands. "I feel so guilty and- why am I so _flustered _and- _why are you smirking__**?"**_

Eli immediately drops the smug smile on his face, but keeps the wicked twinkle in his eye.

"You felt something you say?" he asks innocently, hearty racing a thousand miles per hour.

"You're so smug," Clare snaps, face burning red.

"And you're flustered, you say?" he clarifies, slowly making his way up to a standing position.

"I can't- I'm with Jake!" she exclaims, as if that was the answer to everything. "I can't- oh God, why…"

She whirls around, and rushes away. Her hands, from what Eli can see, are pressed against her hot cheeks in a futile attempt to cool them down. But even as she disappears into the next hall, even though the time she was with him was incredibly short, all of it hadn't been for nothing. Because now, Eli has a ledge. And for him, there's one thing that's now certain.

Somewhere deep down inside, Clare is still sexually attracted to him. Which meant that deep below that there was the deep-seated love for him that had never faded away.

He had something to work with.


	17. Back Again

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**Is anyone still reading this?**

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It wasn't much longer until Clare was released from the hospital; in fact, it was only a few days later after the incident in the basement that she was to be sent back home. Helen and Randall, from what Eli could gather, were quite delighted that the ordeal was finally over, and were looking forward to having Clare back at home. He also couldn't help but notice how smug they looked when they saw him pass by. It's as if they had already won the game, and this infuriated him on many levels because one, the fact that they were so happy that their daughter didn't have any recollection of her life was sickening. Two, they had no right to act all superior about it, as it was fate who had interceded upon their favour, not their own doings. And three, there was an eensy-bitsy detail that they are unaware of that could affect everything.

And as Eli sits in the tiny shrub, he finds himself grinning goofily at the memory. When he closes his eyes, he can still feel her touch, her body tangled with his. He can still remember her scent, as it was as wonderful as it had always been despite the awful hospital smell melded with it. The colour that painted across her cheeks was like sight to a blind man, so beautiful and incredible because it was reserved just for him. And with this, the conniving little boy that is Eli Goldsworthy has devised a plan. A plan to win Clare back one hundred percent.

"You are honestly the creepiest little fucker I've ever met," Adam whispers loudly, only to be shushed by Eli. In a quieter voice he adds, "Why are we even here?"

"Clare just got home this morning, and the first thing she probably wants to do is sleep," he whispers, peering at the tree a few feet away from him. "Her parents are probably going to let her, which gives me a chance to sneak into her bedroom."

Adam stares at him. "And what the hell are you planning to do with her in her bedroom?"

"You _nasty, _it's nothing like that," Eli snaps, face burning at the thought. "I told you, in the basement, something happened. I know she still loves me- she just doesn't remember. But it's in there Adam, I'm sure of it."

Adam puts his hands up in a defensive mode. "Don't shoot a guy for asking. She's my friend too, you know."

Eli rolls his eyes. "Are you going to help me or not?"

"Seeing that I don't really have another choice, I guess I am. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to stand guard," he says briskly, eyeing the front lawn. The car is in the driveway, clear evidence that her parents are at home. And whether Jake is in there or not doesn't really matter to him; as far as Eli's concerned, he's completely irrelevant at this point. "There's a window up front where you can see the living room and kitchen. I want you to tell me if they're ever going upstairs, okay? I'll be climbing up that tree over there." He gestures it wildly, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Do you even know how to climb a tree?" Adam asks skeptically, folding his arms across his chest.

"I've done it before, thank you very much," Eli says acerbically, shoving him out of the shrub. "Now go!"

Adam stumbles forward, nearly tripping over his own feet before regaining equilibrium. His beanie falls anew on his head, and he shoots Eli a death glare. He mutters something ugly under his breath as he stalks away, yanking the knit hat off his head.

Now Eli is rushing ahead, grabbing the first branch of the tree with both hands. He heaves himself up, exerting much more force than from the time before. He's not as strong as he used to be, and his leg in particular slowed him down quite a bit. Heart racing in his chest, he grunts and climbs until he reaches a good level with Clare's bedroom window. The stupid window thing was still there, the very thing that forced him to strip off his pants upon retrieving Clare's stuff. He wonders if they were tucked away somewhere her room, or if Helen had already burned it to ashes.

Eli nearly loses his footing when he sees her, lying soundlessly on her bed. Her eyes are open, much to his surprise, her hands clasped together at her stomach. She's deep in thought, and it's evident by the way she doesn't even notice him. At first, Eli contemplates waving, banging on the screen, and calling her name. But then he sees her sigh, an adorable little sound muffled by the closed window. He sees her rolls over to her side, now supporting her headful of dishevelled curls with one hand, absently fiddling with the hem of her sweater with the other. Every moment is enticing, and he engrossingly watches under his legs groan from squatting for so long. Taking in a deep breath, he leans forwards and knocks.

Startled, she turns around, eyes widening when she realizes who it is. Eli's heart skips a beat when her gaze meets his, and for a second, the world stands still. It's the two of them all over again, sharing secrets messages that no one else could decipher. No one else is intruding, no one else to hear what they are saying, just the two of them. For a second, Eli's fingers loosen, and he gazes at her more deeply and intimately than he has in a while. He drinks her in, every bit of her. Her eyes bring him back to a better place, and all the walls built around him soften and crumble. She breaks him in the best way possible, and she doesn't even have to try.

But before anything else had the chance to happen, the grassy lawn is suddenly approaching at an alarming rate. Gravity rips through his body in the matter of heartbeats, and a sickening crunch it heard through his eardrums.

He fell, damn it. His face is mashed up against the ground, and it hurts.

"Eli!" she cries from somewhere above. Disoriented, Eli attempts to wrench himself up in a sitting position. Nothing happens.

"Ow," he whimpers to the ground.

His ears pick up some scuffing noises. The branches crack and move, and the sound of a solid landing is heard somewhere beside his head.

"Are you hurt?" she asks worriedly, gently turning him around. He blinks, and there are blurry white figures moving all over the place. It takes him a while to zero in on her, as the sky seems to be above him. His head is pounding from the impact, and he's sure to have a massive headache once his vision clears up.

"No, I feel like fucking Superman," Eli mumbles, wincing at the pain. Clare giggles, a pretty sound that makes him smile and feel like it'd be worth falling down a hundred times to hear it again.

"Come," she says softly, gingerly taking his head and laying in on her lap.

_I must have fallen and gone to Heaven, _he thinks, sighing in blissfulness. Half of him is fully keyed in on reality, while the other half is peacefully drifting in God knows where. At the moment though, it doesn't really matter. All he knows is that his head is no Clare's lap, and that's all he needs to know.

"I was planning on slapping you for creeping up on me like that," she muses, shyly playing with his hair. "But then you fell, and I figured you were punished enough."

"I'm on your lap," Eli says distractedly. He's on his lap. She's stroking her hair. Somebody pinch him. "I hope you don't expect me to be coherent."

"Would it help if I push you off?" she asks teasingly, with so much warmth in her voice that Eli is almost convinced that he has died and gone to Heaven. She's not even mad. He can't process this, oh God.

"I will go unconscious if you do so unless you want that to happen under your care…"

"Funny," she says, sounding amused. "Now how about you tell me why you're here?"

As hard as it is trying to wrack his brain, the topic remains at the very front of his mind, and he draws it out for reveal easily. Maybe if he was a little more tuned in, he would take some time to word it in a lighter, vaguer manner, but that's not exactly how it comes across. "I know you still have feelings for me, even if you don't remember it."

Yep, very well worded Goldsworthy. He should receive an award for eloquence, definitely.

Her fingers stop teasing his hair for a minute, and he almost regrets saying the words at once.

"You just won't stop, will you?" she sighs. But contrary to her sad tone, she places her hand on his chest and begins to caress him. Eli whimpers at how good it feels, savouring in the warm touch. He hopes he doesn't scare her away with how fast and hard his heart is beating. If she thought he was going into cardiac arrest, she was doing a pretty good job at hiding it.

"I won't give up on you," he whispers in complete honestly, closing his eyes. "I know you don't remember, but you will always be the most precious thing to me. And whether or not you feel the same way, that'll never change."

"I know you're telling the truth," she says ruefully, now sliding her hand under his shirt form his neckline. She ventures deeper in, now touching him with full-on skin contact. The winter air is suddenly a lot warmer than it had been five minutes ago.

"You do?" he says, the desperate hope leaking in his voice.

"I've been thinking about what happened, and…God, Eli," she smiles, a tinge of sadness still colouring her tone. "The things you made me feel when I can't even remember a single thing…the more I think about it, the more obvious becomes."

She gazes deeply into his eyes, pouring in all the admiration and love he used to see from her all the time. There's not a trace of fear or doubt.

"I just hope someday I can love you again in the same way I once did," she says softly.

"How about now?" Eli asks, turning his head. He faces her stomach, and buries his nose in the soft material of her sweater. She smells so sweet. She smells like home. "What are you thinking now?"

"It's complicated," she whispers.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, nudging her sweater aside with his nose so that he could kiss her belly button. From here, he can hear her heart beat quickening and smiles tenderly. His lips linger there for a while, just continuing to place loving kisses and making it known to her that he loves her with every fibre of his being. He'll never neglect to spoil her with affection again. "But…"

"But what?" she arches her brow.

"But what if…I got you to fall in love with me again? What if we could take it slow?" he suggests hopefully, looking up at her.

"Like go on a first date again? Maybe you could tell me about how that went," she jokes lightly, drawing small circles on his chest.

"We could go see Arcade Fire," he grins. "You'd like them."

"We need a new song, anyway," she says fondly.

"I was thinking Tunnels," he says thoughtfully.

"I'd like-"

"ELI!"

The pair breaks from their little bubble at once, turning to see Adam running over to them with a slightly nervous expression on his face. "I- am I interrupting something?"

"Well-"

"Because I don't really care," he says urgently. "Clare your dad is heading upstairs now! You have to get back up there!"

-x—

Clare, though looking mildly confused, understood that much. father probably wouldn't like it very much if she jumped out a window her first day back, but the way Adam was saying it, it's as if he would pull out a bazooka on them if he found her here.

"Clare, you need to get back up there," Eli says in a rush, wrenching himself off her lap. There are brown twigs stuck on his hair, and maybe if he didn't look so hurried, she would have called him out on it. He looks adorable, and with a tingle in her stomach, she realizes she's never wanted to kiss a person more than she did right now. Not even Jake could bring her to fell this way.

"Don't worry, I can explain things to my dad," Clare says calmly, brushing herself off.

Adam looks at her as if she has a horn growing out of her head.

"Clare, you don't understand," Eli says in a strained voice. "Your dad and mom hate me, and they'll murder me if they find you here with me."

"My parents aren't like that," she counters, feeling offended by his accusation.

"Except that they are," Adam says dryly, tugging roughly on Eli's elbow. "Come on, we have to get out of here!"

"I have to go," Eli says wretchedly, taking her hand and leading her to the front. "Tell you what: you can tell her dad that you stepped out for some fresh air. Tell him that he must have not seen you coming down the stairs."

"You're leaving?" Clare asks, disappointing evident in her voice. She does not want him to go, at least not now.

_Or ever_, she says softly in her head.

Eli reaches out and touches her cheek, smoothing the pad of his thumb over her temple. There's sadness that he's excusing, sadness that Clare can feel. There's an inexplicable ache in her chest that has to do with his inevitable depart, and she's torn. She's torn between leaving with him right now, and staying where it's safe. There's a deep sense of yearning stirring inside of her, just begging her to go with him. To learn again about the boy she once fell deeply in love with.

He presses her forehead and against hers, lips parted and just inches away. His breath is feathery and tempting, and he almost kisses her. Almost.

"I'll come back," he says in an undertone, a tone that's meant only for her ears.

"Promise me," she beseeches him, wondering where the desperateness had derived from truly. There strings are attached now, and they're holding her down with him.

"I promise," he whispers. His lips skim hers, before tearing away completely.

He leaves with Adam at his tail, not a single glance back spared.


	18. Liar

**I'd like to apologize in advance for the poor ending...or atleast, a poor ending in my opinion. I'm trying to get this up before the weekend ends, because I know I'll have zero time to write. I'm also sick, so while I'm typing this author's note, I'm desperately trying not to cough out my guts.**

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**sniffle**

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**Guess I won't be sleeping tonight. ):**

**But please, I still hope you enjoy! Thank for for the reviews, and thank you for taking the time to read this. I enjoy every one of them- especially those that point out what in particular he/she likes. Really, all of you are quite wonderful!**

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"I've been cooped up inside for too long, and I just wanted some fresh air. You must not have noticed me go down the stairs," Clare says rationally, trying to sound convincing.

"Jake and I may have gotten a little carried away there, hmm?"

Randall looks skeptically over at his daughter, not entirely buying her flimsy explanation. Clare, too preoccupied by the distant sound of a car driving away, doesn't really notice his scrutiny. He left so quickly- and what did he mean, that her parents would murder him if they found out he was here? Maybe she's a little biased, a little bit too smitten with him to observe from a third-person's perspective, but Eli is a good person. He's caring, devoted, and sweet- traits that would certainly appeal to anyone. Why wouldn't her mom and dad like him? She knows they like Jake very much, but if she chose someone else, they would understand, wouldn't they?

"Speaking of Jake, he's inside waiting to spend some time with you," he adds casually, walking alongside Clare. "He's been very patiently waiting all morning."

Clare nods. Jake's a nice boy too. It's no wonder they're so fond of him.

_But, _she thinks, _if they knew Eli, they would like him too._

"Morning, Clare," Jake greets, exhaling a puff of smoke. The cigar clipped between his fingers makes her cringe, but she doesn't say anything about it. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm good, thank you," she says politely.

"Clare, Jake said good morning to you," Randal says, a little impatiently. "Go give him a hug."

Clare looks oddly at her father, taken aback by his strange demand. She then looks over at Jake, who just brings the dirty white stick back to his lips. He raises a questioningly eyebrow at her.

"Oh…okay," she says uncertainly. Taking a few hesitant steps forward, she leans over to embrace him. Quickly, before he had a chance to put his arms around her, she pulls away. Keeping her eyes down, she recedes and assumes position next to her father again.

Jake peers suspiciously at her. "Mr. Edwards, do you mind if I go upstairs for a bit? I think I might have left my phone there."

"By all means, go. And maybe you can take Clare with you," he says agreeably.

"Come on, Clare," Jake says, gesturing her with his finger. As soon as she's close enough, Jake reaches over and snakes his arm around her waist, leading her towards the stairs. His body feels uncomfortable pressed against hers; warm, but not invitingly warm in the way she likes. Not warm like Eli.

"Why do I have to go too?" Clare inquires confusedly, as Jake swings open her bedroom door.

"Just come," he beckons.

As soon she she's in, he closes the door quietly behind him. He pulls out a box of cigarettes out of his pocket, proceeding to light it with a lighter. And all at the same time, he leans back against the door, blocking the exit.

"So, you're back to sneaking around with Eli?"

She blinks, registering the word "back". Has she sneaked around with him before? Is that why Eli was so concerned about being seen with her?

"He's not as subtle as he thinks he is," Jake continues, propping his elbow up on her dresser. "I could have heard his landing even if I was back at home."

"I love him," Clare blurts, blushing immediately as his facial expression changes. Her face heats up, so fiery hot that she's sure she could fry an egg on it. "At least, I think I do. I mean, I do but-"

"Do you remember him at all?" he asks coolly. Still indifferent, still completely lukewarm with the idea. Hardly anything seems to bother him. That, or he's just a really good actor.

"I don't remember anything," she answers in a quiet voice. "But Jake, you don't understand-"

"He's good at being manipulative, Clare," he cuts her off again. "That much I understand."

"He's not like that," she murmurs, sitting down on her bed. She stares at her hands, twiddling her thumbs on her lap. She wishes she had hard evidence, but she doesn't. You can solidify feelings. It's just something you know.

"That's what he wants you to think," he counters, closing the distance between them in three long strides. Clare lets out a small gasp at the sudden proximity, watching as he kneels down before her. She only goes limp when he takes her hands in his, holding them and sliding his fingers through the gaps between hers. "Clare…there are some things you don't know of, and he's playing them to his advantage."

"But Jake, I love him. I'm sorry, but there are just some things you know. He makes me feel…" she pauses, searching for the right word. "…complete. It feels right with him, you know?"

His eyes tighten, and Clare, in spite of speaking what she truly feels, immediately worries if she had said the wrong thing.

"That sounds a lot like what you said the last time around," he says, sounding strained.

"What happened last time?" she whispers, not at all liking how despondent he looks.

"He broke you, Clare," he says, with deep pity in his voice. "He tore you away from. He got you to run away with him, turning you against us."

"That…that can't be true," she says unsurely. "He's kind, Jake. He had been so sad when he realized I couldn't remember him. It broke his heart, and he tried so hard to make me remember…"

She's rambling. She doesn't have a very strong argument.

"I believe him," she adds.

"Do you really? Or do you want to believe him?"

He has a point there. The farther this conversation progressed, the more second-guessing she was beginning to do. She did want, so badly, to believe every word he said. It was promising, and she wanted that kind of promise in her life. She closes her eyes and rubs her temples, trying to remember exactly what Eli had said to manipulate her- it's easier said than done, and-

"_I don't love Jake!" she shakes her head in angry desperation, wanting to emphasize that point with everything she had. Eli just looks at her with pained eyes, something of a cross of sorrow and hopelessness printed on his loving face. She's not getting through to him, but she's absolutely pertinacious. She won't give in. "He doesn't even love me!" she adds, frustrated that his expression isn't changing. "He's a selfish gold-digger who only wants to inherit my family's fortune and I don't want anything to do with him!"_

"_I know," he whispers ruefully, cupping her chin with quivering hands. His face is contorted with pain, with anger. "But you can't run anymore, can you?"_

_She feels his heart aching, and aches in return. She feels as if there's a huge brick lying on her chest, constricting her air way, making it hard for her to breathe._

"_I'll feel cold when you leave," she sniffs, allowing him to wipe the falling tears with his shaking fingers. He looks like he's going to crying, but is trying s hard not to. He wants to be strong for her. "My heart will be cold and summer will never bring me the same warmth as when you're around."_

_He opens his mouth to speak, but it cut off by the sound of tires screeching to a halt. They whip their heads around watching with horror as the police care surround them._

_One of them is Jake's car._

"_Police! But your hands up!"_

"Oh my God," she gasps, hand flying to her chest. "Why…_why the hell am I listening to you_?"

Jake's eyes widen, flashing when Clare abruptly gets to her feet. He scrambles backwards like a poor little child, having not expected her to yell so loudly.

"What are you-"

"You- you're manipulating me!" she screeches, reaching over and grabbing the only thing within arm span- her pillow- and whipping it at him. "It w-was _you _who tore us apart!"

"You don't know what you're saying!" he cries, trying to dodge the many fluffy pillows coming his way. Clare has a large collection sitting on her bed, and she fully intends on making good use out of it. She rather they be something a little sharper, like knives or something, but she feels so betrayed, she can't even think of anything else.

"There were twinkling lights!" she screams, slamming the last pillow down on his head. Her curls fly all over the place and her face is red with rage. Her movements are becoming wilder as everything becomes clear to her. She should feel delighted, of course, that she remembered at least something, but that's far from how she really feels. "You sent out police cars to find us! You sat there, all smug in the driver's seat without a single speck of mercy or pity and now you're telling me that Eli was the one who screwed me over? How _dare _you?"

"That's bull!" he yells, yanking the pillow out of her hand. Now disarmed, her eyes enlarge- but then she clenches her fist, daring to take a swing at him.

"Tell me what you know!" she demands in shriek, advancing towards him with her fist hovering above.

"I know you're insane," he mutters resentfully, staggering backwards with his eyes on her fist.

"You sickening, gold-digger-"

"I'm not a gold-digger!" Jake roars, throwing his arms up in the air. "That was your parents, damn it!"

"So you have been lying to me, correct?"

He pales, immediately regretting his words. Clare narrows her eyes furiously at him. She knows that he had been lying to her the whole time, but the fact that he had continued to lie about it, even when she called him out on it, is just wrong. Her muscles tighten in preparation, and she resists with undeniably great effort. If she lost it and punched him, there was no way he'd tell her anything.

"So my parents are gold-diggers?" she asks in clarification, struggling to keep her voice steady.

Looking like a deer caught in headlights, Jake balks. Smart boy should know better than to cross Clare Edwards.

"My dad and them had an agreement," he swallows. "His money in return for their girl."

So that's all she really was to them: a trade good. And all this time, she believed that she was truly lucky enough to have such supportive, loving parents…the lies.

"But why me?" she queries, still professional. The betrayal can be death with later. There are more pressing matters at hand.

Jake shrugs. "Pretty virgin girls are hard to come by."

"So that's just it? My parents sold me to you because I'm a _virgin?" _Clare says in outrage. "I'm their daughter!"

"Who they treated like crap," he adds blatantly, cringing a bit when she shoots him a death glare. "It's true! Look at your wrists!"

And sure enough, when she lifts up her sleeves, she's horrified to find faded red marks decorating her pale flesh. It looks as if someone had seized her with and angry hand, squeezing her, nails digging into her. She unravels her fist, and lightly touches the faint marks.

"How do I know you're not lying?" she demands, flickering over to him.

"Because I don't know what and when you'll remember, and I don't want to risk you getting any madder," he says in a hurry, shrinking back as if he thought she would hit him.

And that would be good enough for her.

"But they're kind to me now," she continues, yanking down her sleeve. "Why's that?"

"Isn't it obvious? They want a do-over. You dad was actually talking to me in the kitchen in detail," he says. "He and Helen and are hoping to mold you the right way, now that they have a second chance."

"Being seen as an item rather than a person seems to be a reoccurring trend here," Clare mutters bitterly. "That's twisted, and sick, and immoral in every way possible!"

He shrugs. "That's your parents."

"How do you feel about this all, anyway?" she asks curiously, having realized that she had no idea what Jake was thinking. "You seem to be going breezily along to this without an opinion."

He sighs wearily. "I don't think my opinion really matters in this situation."

"So, what? You're just going to give it up?" she says in disbelief, only to be responded by a shrug. _Maybe Jake isn't really the bad guy in this scenario, _she thinks, letting this new piece of information soak in. Immediately she's flooded with guilt, having given him such a hard time. No one seems to care what Jake thinks. Just the same, no one seems to care what Clare thinks.

"It doesn't have to be like this, you know," she says quietly, lowering her arm.

He quirks an eyebrow at her. "What do you mean?"

-x—

Eli whistles happily upon microwaving a frozen mini pizza manoeuvring his way around the kitchen with a bit of a spring to his step. In a little radio set on the table plays some cheerful, upbeat music, and he dances along without a single care. The weight of the world is no longer on his shoulders, and he's as jolly as an elf on Christmas Eve.

"Someone's happy," Adam smirks, entering the kitchen with his hair sticking up in all directions. He has to squint to adjust his eyes from the bright lights Eli has turned on.

"And someone has obviously just woken up from a goodnight sleep," he sing-songs, popping open the microwave door and pulling out his food. Adam watches with amused eyes as his best friend of many years, whom he had never seen this joyous, shimmy on over to the freezer to take out another frozen pizza. Eli shoves the prepared one next to Adam's seat, gesturing it with his hands.

"Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that someone's fucking ecstatic," Adam says, eyeing his breakfast with an eager grin.

"Oh you know, the sun's out, the birds are singing," Eli says innocently, turning down the radio. "What's not to be happy about?"

Adam rolls his eyes, chewing loudly. "And this has nothing to do with the fact that Clare pretty much back in your arms?"

"You're exaggerating," he says dismissively. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

But Adam's not an idiot, and he didn't miss the foolish smile spreading across his face at the mention of her name. He rolls his eyes again, but contently so- he's just as happy to reassume his position back as their number one relationship cheerleader.

"So, did she remember or what?" he asks nonchalantly.

Eli presses his lips together, taking a bit of time before shelling out his answer. He sits down across from Adam, poking his small pizzas with his finger. "Not…exactly."

He arches an eyebrow.

"Stop it, I can feel you judging me," he snaps. "It's like I told you, man. It's there."

"I know, I know. It's just hard for someone who's never been in that deep to understand," Adam says hastily, bowing his head.

Eli softens. "You'll find someone one day, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, that's what everyone says," he waves him away. "Spare me the pity."

"It's not pity," Eli insists, more seriously now. "You didn't ditch me when I was going through. You don't leave when things get rough, and one girl out there will truly appreciate it."

Adam offers him a half-smile.

"You think so?"

"I guarantee it."

Just as Eli smiles back, the door bell rings. It's ten in the morning, and someone's at their door.

"I bet that's Clare again," Adam jokes, leaning back on his chair with a satisfied groan.

"Funny," Eli snorts, heading towards their front door. "Remember the last time she came over? One of the most terrifying moments of my life."

"I tied up her mom though," Adam chortles gleefully. As Eli grabs the knob and swings it open, he leans over to see from around him. "Oh would you look at that. Fancy seeing you here again, Clare."

"I have a proposition," she blurts, rosy-face and red-nosed from the sharp winter wind.

"Well, good morning to you too," Eli laughs, stepping back to invite her in. She comes in without hesitation, peering over at Adam with a slightly shy expression on her pretty face. She then proceeds to look around the house, as if it's her first time coming over. Heaven knows it's not, but Eli decided against saying anything. It's actually quite amusing, watching her take in every detail that she has forgotten. Just the same, he studies her, the memories from yesterday still fresh in his mind. He can't help but get a little excited.

"Hi," she says timidly, gazing at him through her long lashes. "Sorry for coming up here without notice. Jake…he told me where you lived and gave me ride up here. There's something I really want to talk to you about," she says, shuffling her feet. Her bright blue eyes peruse him gently, and he can see that she's unsure of how to act around him.

"Jake?" he asks, cocking his head to the side.

"We talked a little bit."

"Sounds serious," he saying teasingly, when inside this little piece of information sent his brain into overdrive. What exactly did they talk about? And more importantly, would this jeopardize all the progress that had been made yesterday? His palms start a to sweat a little, and images of the worst case scenario flash in his mind. Immediately he pictures Clare, glowing and beautiful and golden as she always is, giving him a coy smile. She sees him standing there, as he lets his arms dangle awkwardly at his side. As much as he wants to reach out and grasps her hand, he's not sure of his limits quite yet. He isn't even sure of what their status is, and he doesn't want to ruin anything before is starts.

_Clare, _he calls her, moving towards her with his hand outstretched. But something odd happens. The distance isn't closing between them, and so he pumps his leg harder. And harder. He begins to run towards her, sprinting with every ounce of strength he has. He's running, but nothing's happen. She's still far in the distance, and on the contrary, getting farther and farther away. Clare, blissfully unaware of his panic and exertion, just tilts her head to the side.

_Who are you_? She asks softly, voice echoing in his head. _I don't know you._

Eli, now painfully far away from the girl of his dreams, trips and falls onto the ground from some unknown force. He wills his legs to to stand up, but he has no control over them. _Clare, it's me! You know me! _

Then, far in the distant next to her, a huge misty figure appears out of thin air. He squints, fist thinking it was a mirage, but gasping when he realizes it was Jake.

_Jake, who is he? _she asks him.

The boy looks at Eli with utter disdain, wrinkling his nose. Then, just because he can, wraps his arm around Clare.

_It's some freak. Don't listen to him, Clare._

Liar! Eli's mouth moves wordlessly in shock and pain, unable to stop the tall boy from taking Clare away from him. He's helpless, he has all the power, and she doesn't remember him.

"Eli? Eli, look at me."

He snaps out of his reverie, looking at her with a pained expression on his face.

"If…if you're here to tell me that this was a bad idea and that you choose Jake, go right ahead and say it. I-I won't try to stop you, but please…just tell me now," he begs, choking a little bit in the end.

Clare widens her eyes. "What are you talking about Eli?"

"You talked to Jake," he says bleakly.

"Yes, but that doesn't magically erase my feelings for you," she says, smiling with a cute little blush on her cheeks. Gauging Eli's expression, she giggles and teases his fingers with hers. The simple gesture sends electric sparks through his veins, but just stands, utterly confused.

"But I thought-"

She reaches over, touching his lip with her index finger.

"You can be a babbling fool later," she teases. "Right now, we have a lot to discuss."


	19. Bittersweet

**So I'm thinking maybe a handful more chapters left before this story reaches the end. I'm really excited to be finishing my second multi-chapter fanficiton soon.**

**My math and history tests tomorrow? Not so excited.**

**So here it is! Please continue to review if you like it, I enjoy hearing the "ding" on my phone when I receive notifications about your feedback. I'm not going to lie. I get so happy when I see someone new has reviewed/followed/favourited. **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"…And now I understand why you fled so quickly," she finishes, keeping her gaze on her feet. Their boots crunch against the packing snow beneath them, leaving a beautiful trail of footprints behind them- Eli's big foot prints nearly casting a shadow over Clare's small ones. The snow is pristine, un-walked on before they had wandered over to this neck of the woods. This side of town tends to get the coldest this time of the year, but the bare trees are a pretty sight; the branches allow just enough sunlight to peek through, casting a gorgeous glow onto Eli's face. His eyes, Clare notices, are a warm forest green. His lips are such a perfect shape as well, a perfect Cupid's bow to compliment the structure of his face. He's nice to look at, from what she gathers from indulging peeks at him. Only twice she had caught his eyes the entire time they were talking, and twice her stomach whirled around in thrill. The soft smile on his face is incredibly handsome, and warm above that. She wonders how she could have missed his good looks the first time she saw him. "They'd been really cruel to you, but you stayed. I can't imagine why you would do that, though."

He laughs, playfully nudging her with his shoulders. His hands are jammed in his jacket pocket, and Clare can't help but feel a little disappointed. She really wants to hold his hand, but doesn't want to initiate such an intimate gesture just yet. She's tentative, and considering she had already so boldly pulled him onto her lap, it's his turn to do something of the sort. _If he wanted to hold my hand, he would have already,_ she thinks sadly. He seems perfectly content just walking alongside her, and she doesn't want to push it.

"That's because I had something worthy staying for, silly," he teases, fondly smiling at her.

"But it was months and months of sneaking around," she persists. "Surely at some point, you wanted to call it quits."

"There were a few times," he says pensively, a thoughtful expression glazing over his face. Bringing up his thumb to gnaw on his nail, Clare takes advantage of this moment and looks at him. His forehead is slightly creased as he tries to remember. "But it was never because I thought it was too much work. Sometimes…I thought it would be much better for you to just go along with what your parents wanted. It meant less stress on you, and you wouldn't have to be constantly putting on a charade."

He lowers his hand, but instead of stuffing it back into his pocket, he lets it dangle next to Clare's.

"And then they threatened to lock you up when they found us together one night," he sighs, a tinge of remorse seeping through his words. "We ran away early the next morning."

Clare nods and listens; it's nothing she doesn't know of yet, but still hearing it come from him had a bigger affect on her. What a dysfunctional life she has, running away from a hard home life with a boy she loved. Deep inside, she wishes it doesn't have to be this way. If her parents would just allow her to be with whomever she wants, maybe things would be different. Maybe she would still remember her life, and maybe she'd be happily back at home. Maybe then, she wouldn't have to choose between her parents and Eli.

"What went through your mind, when we ran away that first time?" she asks, finally stopping to rest at a large oak tree. Whirling around to face Eli, literally, her breath is taken away by how close he's standing. Gripping the trunk for a bit of support, she adds in a quieter voice "Did you regret it?"

"No," he answers honestly, holding the other side of the tree with his hand. He looks down at her. "You weren't happy there, and all I wanted was for you to be happy. I also felt like….it was real, that day. More real, more serious than I thought it would get. At that point, I knew I had a responsibility to look after you now. I always had, but more so than ever before. It was all on me."

"Was it what you wanted though? To run away with me?"

His eyes drink her in, unfathomable and unreadable. Clare holds her breath while waiting for his answer. It's the answer she's been dying to ask the entire morning, as she knows, it can make or break everything that's built up to this point.

"Yes," he breathes, closing his eyes. "I wanted to be with you all the time. I wanted to be with you-"

Eli cuts himself off abruptly. "I uhm…never mind."

"What is it?" Clare asks gently. He shakes his head. "Tell me," she says, reaching out to touch his arm. She halts halfway, and both of them stare at her hovering hand. She quickly draws it back, stepping back sheepishly.

He rubs his neck, sporting what could have been a faint blush on his cheeks.

"I wanted to be with you forever," he murmurs, sounding like a small boy with a big hope in his heart.

"Do you still?" she blurts, slapping her hands to her mouth as soon as it comes out. Eli bursts into guffaws as she flushes a deep a red.

"I don't know, Clare," he says. Her pulse quickens at the sound of him saying her name. "Do you think I do?"

"Forever's too overrated, anyway," she says lightly, smiling to let him know that she's joking. "Give me something longer to hold on to."

Eli's eyes shine with amusement and tender lovingness.

"Then I don't think I can give you a definite date," he says softly, stepping closer. "_I'll give you a day, but it's not mine yet. I'll ask you to say with me till then…._"

"_I think tonight I love you,"_ Clare's eyes widen. "Tonight I Love You! That's the song I couldn't remember!"

"It was your favourite song," he chuckles. "And thanks Clare, I love you too."

She knows he's teasing, but the declaration still sends a rush of sheer excitement through her body- saying things aloud just made them more official, more tangible. And in that moment, as much as she doesn't want to get caught up, she can't help but throw away all caution out the window and dive in without hesitation. In that moment, all the trees seem to circle them, zoning in on only the two of them.

"I wish I could feel the same way," she whispers, nearly inaudible.

Eli's face drops, and in a perfectly heartbroken voice he asks "You… don't?"

"Eli…"

"I mean, it's okay if you don't," he quickly adds, throwing on a fake grin. "There's no rush or anything."

But Clare knows that he's lying, and that while there's certainly no rush, there is a bit of misery in loving someone who didn't love you back- especially when once upon a time, that someone had.

"I just don't want to say something I don't mean," she says gingerly. "I want to know, one hundred percent how I feel before declaring it."

She wraps her arms around herself, rolling all her weight onto her left foot. "Which brings me to my proposition."

"I'm listening," he says.

"Like I said, Jake isn't against this," she says shyly, gesturing between them "And like myself, he just wants some reassurance. I was wondering if-"

"We'd have some awesome floor sex to test out the waters?" he supplies with a smirk. "Aw, Clare, all you have to do is ask."

"Shut up," she scolds, slapping him. Blushing profusely, she narrows her eyes at him. Eli flashes a white grin at her in return. "I was wondering if we could go on a first date, but if you're going to be a teenage boy about it-"

"I _am _a teenage boy, Clare," he rolls his eyes, interrupting her again. "I'm going to make gross jokes no matter what."

"Were you always this impossible?" she groans, palming her face.

"Yep, and you loved me anyway."

"Well what was I thinking?" she mutters under her breath.

"Probably that the lips that said all those nasty things kissed you damn well…but you don't remember that, now do you?"

"What are you suggesting, Eli?"  
"Mhmm," he mocks thoughtfulness, boldly taking her waist with his bare hands. "I think you know what I'm getting at."

"Eli," Clare murmurs, wriggling out of his grasp. Against what she really wants, her better judgement triumphs, and she resists her impulses.

"As much as I'd love taking you out on a date- which I'd be honoured to do later on- I want you to believe in me. And I have a proposition to add to your proposition."

"What's that?" she asks.

"If I kiss you, you'll feel something bubbling inside of you," he states with confidence. "Your heart will feel like it's dropping a hundred feet, and your bones will feel like jelly."

She blinks. Is he proposing what she thinks he is?

"That's not even a suggestion," she stammers, stalling for time.

"Is that a yes?" he smiles wickedly.

"You're being presumptuous," Clare throws at him, unable to think on her feet. _He can't be serious! _"You can't just expect me to kiss you like that!"

"If you don't want to, I understand," he shrugs.

_And he seems so okay with that too. The nerve! _Indecisive, flustered, and irked all at once, all Clare wants to do is wipe that offhand smirk off his face. How can he be so calm and collected about the whole thing, when here she is, standing and having a mental freak-out? Especially since on day one, it was the other way around!

He appears to have sensed her panic, and lets out a chuckle. This pushes Clare to make a decision soon, and by soon, it meant _now._

There's a faint buzzing in her ear. It's now or never.

She stretches up onto her tippy-toes and in the midst of his laughter, Clare interrupts him with the most mind-blowing kiss that sets the hairs on his arms standing up. She presses against his with such passion and determination, Eli is caught completely off guard and staggers back a bit. His eyes must have flown open in shock, but Clare doesn't register anything but the feel of his lips smashing against her with the same kind of ardency. He pushes into her, but not in the rough kind of way- it's all the past feelings poured into that one kiss, so feverish and so full of eagerness. She feels him squeeze his eyes shut, all while prying her mouth open to let his tongue intrude. She welcomes his hot breath entering her mouth without vacillating for a second.

She doesn't realize that his hands are gripping the hem of her shirt until they finally find her waist, agitatedly fumbling around until they are under her shirt. With one great exertion of force, and without breaking off, he lifts her up and brings her closer to him. Clare acts instinctively and wraps her legs around his torso, throwing her arms around his neck. There are Goosebumps there that are not from the cold.

Simultaneously, they slowly break away. Their breathing is deep and loud, hearts beating so fast through their shirts. Clare touches her nose with his, pressing her forehead against his.

"I love you," he gasps, grip tightening on her. The teasing and jokes are gone, and the neediness and desperation makes an appearance. It's not about proving a point anymore. It's much more than spontaneity. "Please tell me you love me too."

It's then that she realizes that he can't joke about it anymore.

"I can't," she says abruptly, pushing him away. He recedes, defeated, and the hands that had held her close to him hang limp by his sides.

"So that's it?" he says hoarsely, sounding stunned. "You can kiss me, you can lead me on, but then you tell me you don't love me?"

"No!" she cries, shaking her head. "See what you're doing? You're pressuring me!"

"How am-"Eli starts in aghast.

"Don't you understand? To me, this is all new! You're essentially still a stranger to me, and you expect me to make the biggest commitment I can just like that?"

"This kiss was a bad idea," he says in a strained voice, practically ignoring everything she had just said. "It was stupid to think that any of this would work."

And with that comment, Eli begins to walk away. Clare, with her eyes tearing in distress, reaches out and grabs his wrist, stopping him from turning away. He can't walk away. Not like this, and certainly not now.

"Eli, stop," she begs. "You just have all these expectations of me, and I- I'm afraid I can't meet them."

"What did I expect of you?" he asks in outrage. "All I wanted was your love."

"That's just it- my love! Please believe me when I say that you're special to me and-"

"-not special enough to love, apparently," he mutters resentfully.

"_And," _she says_, "_that I believe I had loved you, not long ago. I know, Eli, and I know it's still there- how many times do I have to tell you? It's just going to take a little time to find again, and I want to be sure of it before I tell you. Why are the words so important to you, anyway? You know how I feel- isn't that enough?"

"Because, Clare," Eli says in a low voice, looking bleakly at her. "We had it all. And to have it all ripped away from you without warning…it hurts. And I just want it back to way it was before."

"I know that, you know."

"It hurts so much, Clare," he whimpers, staring at the ground. "It hurts pretending that I'm okay with this."

"Oh, Eli," she breaths, sliding her arms around him and pulling him close.

And even though he's taller than her, he finds a way to rest his cheek on her shoulder. She gently kisses his forehead, gingerly holding him like she would hold broken pieces.

"Please be patient with me," she whispers into his ear, caressing his back.

-x—

They stay there, wound together until evening breaks down on them. Eli doesn't know how it is that time could have gone by that quickly, but it had. Being wrapped up in Clare's arms feels like home to him, and as he closed his eyes and focused on the warmth of her body emitting from her, it's like Heaven in the midst of a hell-ish place. It's Heaven because there's no rush- not once had she asked him if he was done, or if he was okay. She didn't speak, just continued to rub his back in a comforting motion.

He knows she had never meant to hurt him. It would just take a while to get past the deep aching in his heart.

"I have to take you home," he says sadly, forcing his body away from the warm haven. The cold air rushes to him attack his face at once, stabbing at his cheeks and hoping to make up for some lost time.

"Okay," is all she says.

The ride back is silent. The only thing that can be heard is the sound of the sun setting, fading into a beautiful artwork of orange and yellows.

"Will you take me out tomorrow?" Clare asks when he reaches her house.

He smiles. "Where could you like to go?"

"Anywhere, as long as it's with you."

The porch lights flicker on, a sure sign that they're being watched. He doesn't have very much time left with her, but he's glad, at the very least, that she wants to see him again tomorrow. "I'll see what I can do."

She nods, eyes darting towards her home, and then back at him.

"You should go," he says softly, dropping his hand from the steering wheel.

"They'll be waiting," she sighs, unbuckling her seatbelt. "Bye, Eli."

With one departing glance at him, she turns and opens the passenger door. As she climbs out, Eli keeps the small plastered on his face, and intends to until she's safely inside. He nothing more than to curl up in a ball and lay warm in bed, and maybe stay there until he's ready to face the world again. How is it possible, that someone could be so glad and miserable at the same time? Everything is so close to him, within reach. And yet, his fingers are unable to stretch out any further. They're not long enough to seize what he wants, and it kills him.

He has to keep moving forward, though, and so he starts up Morty again. The rough engine cuts into the noiseless evening, and he prepares to step down on the accelerator.

"Wait!"

The hearse jerks back, and Eli turns around. To his confusion, Clare is seen running towards him- away from her house.

"What are you doing?" he asks, taken aback by her panting and sudden change of direction.

"I-I…you didn't kiss me goodnight," she says in a small voice, looking at him in a way a child would look up to a tall adult.

_Oh. _Such a small request to ask, but such a big impact to his heavy heart. Her pretty blue eyes are sparking with hope, hoping to have some sort of reminder to get her through the night.

"Then get on over here," he grins, leaning out to capture her lips in a sweet, soft kiss.

It would get him through the night, too.


	20. Titanic

The date had to be perfect.

He spends hours in his room, peering nervously at his mirror when he isn't pacing back and forth and fussing with his hair when he isn't staring at the mirror. It's their first official date since the accident, and he wants to make it special- he _needs _to make it special. Regular grey jeans and a black button-down has never looked so dubious before, and his hair seem to resist lying flat- granted, it never lay flat before, but it seems extra unruly today.

"Clare doesn't care about all that, you know," Adam says, sitting on Eli's bed with a smirk. He watches with amusement as his best friend tries to attack his hair with a wet comb, sniggering when he nearly gets the comb stuck. "You were ugly before, and she loved you just the same."

"Is this supposed to be a pep talk?" Eli grumbles, rumpling up his hair all over again. He reaches for the top button on his shirt, hesitating, wondering if he should leave it unbuttoned or not.

"Unless you got some furry chest hair in there, which I'm certain you don't, you better button that up," he pipes up helpfully.

Eli rolls his eyes, too nervous to form a coherent retort. It is five minutes before he has to go pick up Clare, and he finds himself spending most of the time pacing back and forth in his room. Adam, though quite amused by this behaviour, can't help but feel a little worried. Eli does have a tendency of taking things to extremes, which more times than often led to disastrous outcomes.

"Hey, don't think too much about it," he says encouragingly, softening up his a voice. "Just be yourself, and have fun. I'm sure she will too."

"I know," Eli sighs, running his hands through his hair. He plops down on his bed next to him, shoulders slouching and head swimming with thoughts. "It's just…"

"Just what?"

Eli scratches his head. "It's just seems like so much trouble going through all of his again. I just wish things to be back the way it was before."

Adam frowns, having heard the exact statement more times than he could count. "You're dwelling again, Eli," he says, trying not to sound too bothered by his constant moping.

"I know, I know," Eli says again, more exasperatedly this time. "Wishing won't change anything, I know that."

"It's not just that," Adam says, shifting to face him. He lowers his voice, and wears a grave face to match. "We've heard what the doctor said. Chances are, Clare won't ever fully regain her memory, and that's just something we all have to deal with."

Eli twists his face into a grimace, remembering very clearly the doctor's regretful tone and pitiful attempt at softening up the circumstances with fake optimism. _But we never know what might happen_, he says. _The brain is a very complex system, _he says. He remembers thanking him very curtly and then leaving as his stomach churned uncomfortably with the new information sinking in. None of it had come off as a major shock, but it was still difficult to hear the words.

"What you had with Clare is gone, and there's nothing else you can do about," Adam says grimly. "She won't remember all the dysfunctional fights you had in the middle of the night, the poems you'd make paper airplanes out of and fly into her bedroom window, or what she was thinking when you two took those pictures. "She won't remember her first impression of you, and she won't remember the first time you guys kissed. I get it, Eli, it's hard. But life moves on, and you should do the same."

"But I don't want toooo," he whines, stamping his feet on the ground and completely dodging the bigger picture. He settles for what's easier and more convenient, and that's sulking about it. Eli's so clouded with remorse, blinded in a way so that he's incapable of adjusting, it's difficult for him to take a step back and take a good look. Adam folds his arms across his chest, having grown tired of reinforcing and heartening and doing his best to steer Eli in the right direction. The boy's as stubborn as hell in ways he doesn't even realize, and it's holding him back. Adam's patience is wearing thin, Eli has yet to cease dwelling, and is becoming increasingly frustrating at that. "Then don't go," he says shortly, switching tactics. Adam's not the one who has trouble with changing. "If you think it's too much work, then why bother? Obviously she's not worth the trouble."

"That's not what I meant," Eli said in an offended voice, putting the brakes on his childish demeanour. For a second he looks angry that Adam could say such a thing about her, and before he could react more violently to it Adam carries on.

"Then stop being annoying about it, or don't go," he says sternly, giving him the ultimatum. With the manner in which Adam is standing up, towering over him like a parent, Eli's sure he's a toe behind wagging his pointer finger. There's something about the picture that makes him want to laugh, for Adam hardly ever takes initiative like this. Often he's just there to support his wild and erratic decisions, and pick himself up when things get out of hand. "I think you know better than anyone else that nothing will come easily, and it's up to you to decide if Clare is worth the extra effort."

And with that Adam exits the room, sweeping past the shirts on the floor and leaving Eli to ponder over his little extemporaneous speech.

-x—

He's late, and Clare begins to doubt that he'll ever show up.

Jake waits with her on the front porch, fiddling with a cigarette between his fingers. Every so often he'll bring the white stick to his lip and take a long drag, and expertly breathe out a clean puff of smoke. He's been around the house so often, Clare has accustomed to the redolent, the distinct stench of lung cancer burning her nose and causing it to subconsciously wrinkle. She doesn't like it, but she deals with it because she's still wary about their whole secret agreement. It's still awkward trying to navigate their new relationship, only because neither are sure if it is technically a relationship. They've reached an understanding, and that's all that's really important right now. Maybe someday they could be friends. Maybe, and only if they make it out here alive, they can put this all behind them. It's a pretty big maybe to ride on, so they don't discuss it any further. There are more pressing matters to address.

"You don't have to wait out here with me, you know," Clare says gingerly, slicing through the thick silence drifting between them. Jake doesn't appear bored, but she herself is getting rather fidgety and so she assumes he must be getting impatient as well.

"If I go back inside, they'll probably start interrogating me again." he says pragmatically, referring to the two villains inside the house. It's nice knowing that Clare's not alone on this, and that Jake wants the same kind of freedom she wants. He told her last night that he wants something bigger than what this city can give him, but under the restraints of his father's agreement with the Edwards, he's struck wherever they want him to be. He wishes to visit his mother in the rural part of Ontario again, perhaps meet a girl and live there for the rest of his life. Clare had told him that it was nice to have a simple dream like that, and for the first time they shared a small smile. She discovered then, that Jake Martin is really not a bad person.

Clare inconspicuously glances at her watch, wondering where in the world he could be. Thinking back, his expression hadn't been all that clear, and she starts to feel silly for throwing herself at him in the first place. But no sooner had the thoughts wrecked her completely, the sound of fast footsteps approaching the driveway is heard by the both of them. Their heads snap up in unison, and Eli appears looking slightly breathless.

"Sorry I'm late, I was…getting you these," he says in a small voice, holding up a pretty bouquet of pink flowers. There's a trail of fallen petals behind him serving as evidence of his haste, and while Jake perceives it as carelessness, Clare chuckles at the sight. Eli feels silly for showing up as ungraceful as he had, and Clare feels ridiculous for ever doubting Eli's feelings for her.

"I like them," she says, standing up and brushing herself off. Eli beams and lets out a sigh of relief, handing over the bouquet to her.

"I can bring them inside if you like," a cool voice offers, and Eli soon realizes that Jake is watching them. His insides clench at the sight of him sitting so casually a little bit behind Clare, and his hands twitch. He almost reaches out to pull her behind him, but remembers that he can't do that anymore. At least, as long as they weren't officially together.

The ignited fire simmers down the moment Clare wraps her finger around one of his own, her shoulder brushing him lightly. In an instant, clenching relaxes, and he's floating.

"Thank you," she smiles, passing it over to him. "You can set it on my nightstand."

Jake nods and starts to turn towards the door, pauses, and looks back between Clare and Eli.

"Don't fuck this up," he says gravely, giving Eli a pointed look.

And in spite of his crude language and his implication that Eli was in danger of messing up, he's at ease. He's at ease because he finally believes that Jake isn't a threat anymore, that he's more concerned with how he treats her rather than being with her. Suddenly the smell of smoke doesn't bother him as much as it used to.

"I won't," he promises earnestly, tightening his finger around Clare's delicate one. He gazes at her. "I won't."

They start along the sidewalk hand-in-hand, and it never once occurs to her that being in a car would be cosier. She's not bothered by the fact that her ears are cold and that sitting in front of a heater would be much more comfortable than this. It doesn't bother her at all. She's not bothered because he's holding her hand while she bounces up onto the cement ledge, helping her maintain balance as she ambles along like a trapeze artist. Eli's presence on its own is enough to help forget the trivial things, like comfort and all that. He has his own comfort and warmth to offer her, and she can easily feel it emanating from his touch. And there's so competition as to which type of warmth is more preferable.

Clare smiles, feeling like a little baby bird when she outstretches her arms in the way that she does. Eli smiles back because she's so delicate and graceful, even when she's tripping over her own feet. The walk is silent and all they can hear is the wind rushing past their ears, tousling their hair and giving Clare some troubles with equilibrium. Eli holds her hand patiently, never once tugging her forward even when she lags behind. The way they're acting around one another, there's a sense of intuitiveness that makes them feel perfectly content with just walking without words. For Eli, he's mesmerized by the curves of her legs from under her light pink dress, tightly surrounded by the fabric of thick black leggings. He's fondly watching her tip-toe across the thin cement ledge, as she never once lets her heels touch the bottom. It's little things like this that make her fall in love with her again and again.

For Clare, it's still because he's holding her hand. And that he's not letting go.

The sky has turned greyer from when they started their stroll, and dark clouds had huddled together in massive lumps. How long had they been walking, merely enjoying each others' company? As Clare hops off, Eli clears his throat, straightening his spine. He puts on a mock-serious face.

"Where to, miss?" he asks in a silly English accent, trying to mimic Jake from _Titanic. _He knows it's Clare's favourite movie, and even though she might not remember it-

But she twists her arm around his and leans into him, standing higher on the balls of her feet to measure up to him. Her lips brush the shell of his ear, causing a chilling shiver to ripple through his body. "_To the stars_," she whispers passionately, only because it felt so right to.

Eli gulps, every trace of humour disappearing from his face. They stop dead in their tracks, looking deeply into each other's eyes. Clare can see his Adam's apple bobbing nervously; Eli the slight fluttering of her eyelashes. The world stands still for them. It fills with nothing but thirst and desire, and suddenly there's nothing more that they want than each other.

"Maybe someday," he murmurs deeply, wounding his finger around her tendrils. Something about it makes the gesture intimate, like it's a calling for something more. Something winter clothes and the exposure of being outside can't give him. He gazes more intently into her face, and sees that he isn't the only one.

A huge gust of wind nearly blows them over, and thunder crackles across the grey. It'll be a matter of seconds before the sky opens up.

"Someday, I want to know every part of you," Clare says ambitiously, craning her neck to look above them. She smiles to herself. "I want to know everything that makes you laugh," she muses, wriggling her fingers under his chin. A huge, sheepish smile breaks out, and he scrunches his shoulders together. "What makes you sad," she continues, drawing her fingers away. Eli's throat makes a primal groan at the loss. "What makes you smile."

"One day you will," he assures, bringing her hand to touch his face. He smiles at her. "I'll give you a hint, though- all of it has to do with you."

"I made you sad?" she asks, sounding a little hurt.

"Sometimes," he admits, neglecting to sugar-coat. He peers up to the sky thoughtfully, touching his chin. "It's because you have me all wrapped around that little finger of yours, everything you do affects me."

"I know," she says quietly. She knows.

The walk for a little longer, neither of them saying a word for the next few minutes.

"So where exactly are we going again?" Clare asks, hoping over a crack on the ground.

Eli brightens up. "You'd like it, Clare. It's especially beautiful this time of year, and I know you like things like that."

"It's it somewhere I've ever been before?" she inquires hesitantly.

He shakes his head, and Clare relaxes a bit. She smiles, thinking of all the new memories they could make. Not forgotten ones, but brand new ones. She doesn't want to spend the rest of her life revisiting all the places she's forgotten, or trying to remember everything that had happened before. It makes her empty inside, like there's a huge void inside of her that she can't fill no matter how hard she tries.

At some point, Eli has a blindfold in his hand and is asking for permission to cover her eyes. Initially, Clare is tentative because she's still afraid of darkness, but Eli promises that he won't let go of her hand. His hand is warm and bigger than hers, and she can't deny that it feels like home- wonderfully nostalgic, sizzling in heat, but oh-so lovely to touch. She's gliding, practically air-born with the way he's holding her hand, it suddenly dawns on her how ridiculous this is, going on a first date as some kind of test to see if they're still meant to be together. Sometime in the middle of all of this, something bursts inside of her, and she nearly stop dead in her track.

She already knows she loves him- before and now. It's now that she realizes, in a burst of intuition, she's going to love him for years and years to come. There's no explanation for this epiphany- hence the name, _epiphany. _There was no string of events that consequently led to this, it just happened somewhere between the soft touches and immeasurable patience he expressed for her. And suddenly, Clare feels like she's going to explode.

"Here it is," he says softly, untying her blindfold to reveal something nothing short of beautiful.

A little pond has frozen into a word of art, surrounded by hundreds of naked trees extending brittle branches in every direction. The greenish-grey plant-life beneath the surface of the ice stands still underneath, creating a gorgeous mosaic of dull colours and different textures. There's a sharp contrast between it and the thin blanket of white snow environing it, and it just looks so incredible.

He waits for a reaction, a positive one in particular. When it doesn't come immediately, he knits his eyebrows together in confusion, wondering if he was wrong in thinking that she would like something like this. He contemplates telling her they could go somewhere else if she doesn't like it, but before he could get any words out, he's thrown backwards by a sudden force.

A sudden force of affection.

Her hands are everywhere at first, exploring his torso and neck and hair in a manner that isn't sloppy, but fueled by intense desire. She isn't looking for gold, because it isn't all that simple- her intention is very clear from the beginning of the grasping and touching, and it's that she can't wait any longer. She needs him as close as possible, and she needs him _now._

She slams her lips onto his, prying his mouth open without sanction of any kind. One hand is running across the length of his arm and the base of her shoulders. The other is sliding under his jacket. Eli responses quickly, enthusiastically, having not realize how much tension he was withholding all this time. He explodes too, and together they fall apart. All rationality aside, all prudency tossed to the corner, they work for the same purpose. They're trying to shorten the physical distance between them as much as possible, urgently and desperately at that.

Eli is lying with his back against the snow, Clare on top of him. She's kneeling between his legs, unzipping his jacket to gain better access to his chest. Eli does the same with her, and as soon as his t-shirt underneath is exposed, Eli hastens to pull her down against him. He pushes her down with as much pressure as he could exert without being too rough. It's a somewhat frustrating process, because as intimate as the friction is, it's not enough to satisfy. He craves the feel of her bare skin, right against the bareness of his own. Had it been under ideal circumstances, they'd be cozy under some thick blankets, completely naked and wrapped around each other. Clare wouldn't be wearing nearly as much clothes to start with, either.

She senses the aggravation pouring in their kiss, and abruptly wrenches herself upwards. Breathless and chest heaving heavily, Eli looks up at her with half-lidded eyes, lips apart in surprise. He looks like a kid on the twenty-fourth of December who'd just been told Christmas had been cancelled.

But then instincts kick in, and Clare's reaching for his hand. She places it gently over her clothed breast, both of them shivering as a result of the contact. Both hearts accelerate. Hormones go into overdrive. He gropes her without thinking about it, letting out a low moan.

"Put your hands on me, Eli," she whispers, leaning forward again to capture his lips in another kiss.


End file.
